Android Games and Apps Giveaway

For a limited time, Amazon is giving away some paid apps for free.

click on image

which may be worth a look-see. Click on the image to see today’s batch of freebies. (There’ll be a different assortment each day of the giveaway.)

* Someone told me today is the first day of Spring.
Which, if it’s true, is good news to me.
And I always vote For good news.

This Just In: China reveals existence of cyber warfare hacking teams

“The country has finally admitted to the existence of units dedicated to cyber warfare.” Read more..

[May as well admit it. There’s no one who didn’t already know …] [Still, an important read.] [And in this case, “cyber warfare” includes espionage.]

Today’s quote: “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” ~ Dave Ramsey

Paul’s Tip: Don’t be like that. Be smart.

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Glary Utilities Giveaway

Folks,  there’s a limited time giveaway on BitsDuJour today you might wanna grab:

“Glary Utilities PRO is a Swiss Army knife of system optimization suitable for use by novice and professional alike. With Glary Utilities PRO, you’ll have access to registry and disk cleaning, privacy protection, performance acceleration, and amazing multifunctional tools. With just a few clicks, Glary Utilities PRO can repair registry errors, optimize internet speed, recover wasted disk space, safeguard confidential files, and maintain maximum performance.

It’s impossible to overstate the benefits of Glary Utilities PRO. The app fixes what’s wrong with your computer, and whatever isn’t wrong, it just makes better and faster.”

Get it here. [Sorry. Offer has expired.]

Today’s quote: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” ~ Albert Einstein

Copyright 2007-2014 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
And please, never forget – one person can make a difference.
Find a way to make someone’s day today.
(Best advice I ever heard? Don’t sweat the small stuff.)

This Super Bowl Sunday (and a giveaway)

Folks,
I hope you all have a marvelous, and safe, Super Bowl Sunday.

If it wasn’t for the referee’s, my team (the 49ers) would be playing today. And I might still be a football fan. But I am done. This was my last year of caring about sports. I may have to watch the game, though, as we finally are having some rain (in case you haven’t heard, California is yet again in a drought) and it is quite yucky outside.

Some tech: Loyal readers know I have for the past couple of years been advising Windows XP users to stop using XP, and upgrade to Windows 7 (or 8). What most people don’t “get”, is that there is no direct “upgrade path” from XP to the newer OSes (Microsoft made it so you had to go to Vista); or easy way to go from 32-bit (as XP is) to 64-bit. So if you have a XP machine I suggest taking advantage of this giveaway:

* Are you ready for Windows XP end-of-life? On April 8, Windows will discontinue all technical support, security updates, and hot-fixes for Windows XP. Don’t let your computer be at risk for malware and hackers!

On February 4 , for one day only, Laplink is giving away PCmover Windows Upgrade Assistant for FREE.

This programs makes transferring/upgrading easy.

* Lenovo’s acquisitions should get green light, experts say

“Lenovo’s deals to purchase IBM’s lower-end server business for $2.3 billion and Motorola’s Mobility handset unit from Google for $2.91 billion will likely receive U.S. regulatory approval as long as the company embraces concessions tied to national security, industry experts say. “We look forward to going through the regulatory process and we’re going to work with the regulators with an open and transparent approach,” Lenovo’s Brion Tingler says.” Read more..

Why should you care? Lenovo is Chinese.

* For those who might be interested, I think Elway is gonna win. But I have to admit, this year is the first year I can remember where the league’s two best teams are playing in the SB.
[update: Wow. Was I ever wrong..! Seattle won that game in the first quarter.]

Today’s quote: “One positive action is worth 1,000 positive thoughts.” ~ not sure where I heard that…

Copyright 2007-2014 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
And please, never forget – one person can make a difference.

How To Remove A Stuck CD (and a software giveaway)

Troubleshooting a slot drive

I still fiddle with my iMac, and the other day I came across a problem which has spawned today’s “how to” topic — namely, the DVD I was had been watching would not eject out of the ‘slot’. And, the iMac doesn’t have the paperclip hole to forcibly eject a disc from the “superdrive”.

image source: bindapple

The official Apple methods for getting a disc to eject go like this:

1. Press and hold the Eject key on your keyboard.
2. Right-click (control-click) on the disks icon on the Desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu
3. Drag the disks icon to the Trash bin within the Dock
4. Select the disc’s icon and hit “Command-E”

More advanced Mac stuck disk eject methods

1. Launch Disk Utility and select the CD/DVD from the sidebar. Click the Eject icon at the top of the Disk Utility screen.
2. Launch the Terminal and type following command: drutil eject, and hit the Return key.
3. If those fail, try restarting your Mac and hold down the mouse button (or trackpad button if you have a laptop) as the system “boots”. Keep holding it down until the system fully restarts (or the disc pops out, whichever comes first).

None of those worked for me, so I had to resort to a manual method. The first thing to try is to tip the machine so the disc drive is vertical to the horizon (slot down), so that gravity can assist, while trying one of the eject methods above.. maybe giving a little shake as well. Hopefully, your disc will “fall out”.

Gravity (and shaking) didn’t help me, so it was time to reach in there with something. Tempting though it is, tweezers are not the tool of choice (as they can/will scratch the disc). I used a stiff business card (though a credit card can work too) with a length of double-sided tape pressed on. Insert the card at the “top” (long side closest to the screen/disc’s ‘label side’) of the slot, with the sticky tape toward the back of the machine (the bottom of the disc drive) and then “fish” the disc out by a slight to-the-back (away)-and-out motion.

If it simply will not come out (even with tweezers), you probably will require disassembly, and probably will need to visit a tech.

Software giveaway: I noticed a decent limited-time software giveaway on BitsDuJour.. which seems to be experiencing some technical difficulties, but you may want to sign up anywho.

Wise Care 365 PRO for PC – Coming Soon

100% Off
$54.00
= $0

“Wise Care 365 PRO is a comprehensive PC tune-up utility that promises to keep your Windows PC secure and running at peak performance.” more

Unrelated: where did this week go?

Also unrelated: 7 Things Your Body Language Is Telling Your Boss

 “From the way you sit in your chair to the color of your tie, nonverbal communication can have a big impact on your professional life. Here’s some advice.” Read more..

Looking back..: Junk mail looks just like it did back in 1997.. doesn’t it?

Because, why change a good thing, right?

Today’s quote: “We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives.” ~ Lewis Thomas

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Headlines to note | A good giveaway

Quickly, a few items I think worthy of your attention:

* NetSeer suffers hack, triggers Google anti-malware warnings

“One advertising network’s corporate Web site suffered a hack and a malware injection attack this morning, which led to Google warning users worldwide to avoid ‘infected’ sites.” Read more..

* Welcome to bullyware: Malware gets more aggressive in money hunt

* Forget the Super Bowl. Critical Java patch released; update now

*Anonymous posts over 4000 U.S. bank executive credentials

And an alert reader shared a good software giveaway (download) you might want to jump on.

“The Glarysoft Giveaway today is… Zemana Antilogger 1.9.3.251. $34.00 usually…BTW, I signed up for their daily email.

Zemana AntiLogger is a powerful, efficient, and lightweight app that blocks hackers. It detects any attempts to modify your computer’s settings, record your activities, hook to your PC’s sensitive processes, or inject malicious code in your system. The AntiLogger is designed to work with your anti-virus. While an anti-virus application will protect you against a wide range of known forms of malware, the AntiLogger is able to stop advanced, new, and niche threats developed with a specific objective: to steal your private information or access your secure internet connections.”

* The Big Picture: A good read for looking at the future of tech (and, understanding what’s happening now) Surface Pro, Windows 8 and the rebirth of Microsoft

“A new landscape of tablets, cloud and BYOD pressures means that Microsoft has to get both the software and the hardware right.

Last year’s launch of Windows 8 and the soon-to-be-released Surface Pro tablet are setting the company on a very different course to the one it has pursued in recent years, and will define its strategy for the next decade.” Read more..

Busy day ahead.. have to run.

Update: * An Easy-To-Use Program To Fix, Speed Up, Maintain And Protect Your PC

“One of the biggest complaints I often hear from people who use a computer at home is that over time their computer gets slower and slower. This often occurs as result of installing numerous software programs and failing to perform routine system maintenance. When I hear this complaint, I will often help them clean up […]” Read more..

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Summer Goodies

In the spirit of a sunny summer Saturday, a few good thing to share with you today — a “goodies grab bag”.

First up: An Extremely Versatile and Configurable Screen Capture Utility

“I have tried just about every screen capture utility out there, but a new one landed on my plate that I can only describe as being in the category of awesome (especially for being free and portable). It is called LiveCapture. I am not going to get into the details, because the screen shot below […]” Read more..

Then, a software giveaway: Digiarty, together with another 7 software vendors, launched a large-scaled Summer Holiday Giveaway, including:

• IObit – Advanced SystemCare Pro 5
• Lavasoft – Ad-Aware Personal Security
• EaseUs – EaseUs Partition Master Pro
• Kingsoft – Kingsoft Office Writer Standard 2012
• ObviousIdea – GreenCloud Printer
• Zoner – Zoner Photo Studio 14 HOME
• My Privacy Tools – Cookie Crumble
• Digiarty – WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe

Sizzling Summer Slots!

Want to “spin to win”? Click here!

Great software deals and a giveaway you probably want to check out… (click on the image). Limited time offer. First come, first served!

All full licenses are officially sponsored by the related companies.

To make it interesting, visitors are required to play a simple game (the slot machine). Lucky ones can get a full license immediately. If they can’t match the figures, just make more attempts. Great discounts for the Software mentioned above are also open for every participant. (Click on the image to participate.)

And just because it’s been a while…

Click on image to see more by this artist

“beach bummmmmm..” by camerakarrie, courtesy of Flickr Commons

Today’s quote: “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Bonus: There’s more software giveaways in the Comment section (below).

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Sinking To A New Low

Last night I happened to do something I do not do much of any more. I turned on a TV.

And took a look at a few minutes of the NBA Championship game. No, I am not a basketball fan. But it is a topic of conversations. And I wanted to get up to speed.

Of course, most of what I witnessed was not sport, but commercials (more than half the “airtime minutes” would be my estimate). That fact may have depressed me enough that I was not properly mentally armored when one particular commercial came on — a “trailer” for a Coming Soon To A Theater Near You movie.

It was the CGI that caught my attention, and I “tuned in” to this commercial (a Civil War battle scene..).

Big mistake.

The name of this film is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

“President Lincoln’s mother was killed by a supernatural creature, which fuels his passion to crush vampires and their slave-owning helpers.” ~ 20th Century Fox

I’m sorry. But I cannot find any humor in this. I am offended.

Insulted.

The Great Emancipator portrayed as an axe-wielding super-hero type.. able to fly, or jump 80′ .. or have X-ray vision, or such other tripe nonsense.

Hollywood is never, ever, getting another penny from me.

Ever.

Am I the only person bothered by this? Maybe. But I am beginning to think maybe clotildajamcracker was right when she wrote “.. So stop slacking and let’s end this world once and for all..” the other day… (though she was using humor.)

Needless to say, I turned off the TV mucho muy mas pront-o. Don’t plan to turn it on again anytime soon.

Swill.

Nothing but slop for the masses. Lowest Common Denominator.

Hollywood: We Excel At Reaching New Lows – Everyday!

I apologize to you Dear Reader. There is some techie stuff happening, and I really should have talked about that..
(Such as: Hacker claims mass bank breach; releases Visa, Mastercard data

“More than 79 banks have been breached, claimed a hacker on Twitter. Following a data release on Tuesday, he said he has more than 50 gigabytes of U.S. and foreign bank data in his hands.” Read more..)

But I am kind of curious.. am I alone in this feeling? I am the only one turning off the TV? Not going to theaters?

Oh, well. Doesn’t really matter I guess.. How I feel is how I feel. And I felt an urge to get that off my chest. I’d ask for a boycott of this movie.. but I am not so vain as to think anyone would hear, or heed.

I read it had a $70 million budget… and it’s in “3D”. I expect it’ll be a blockbuster.. Maybe THE summer blockbuster.

How sad.

(In RL, and Actual Fact, Abraham Lincoln happens to be one of those Historical Figures well-worth learning more about.)

Today’s Geekspeak: “CGI” = “computer generated imagery”, largely used for “special effects” in video production. (Back in the Dark Ages, they had to make movies without any help from CGI. So they compensated with things like acting, storyline/plot, costumes/wardrobe, and skillful photography.)

Today’s quote: “He who gives when he is asked has waited too long.” ~ Sunshine Magazine

Your reward for reading this far down: Summer slots!

Want a spin? Click here!

Great software deals and giveaway you probably want to check out… (click on the image). Limited time offer. First come, first served!

~     ~     ~

.. 79 banks ..

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.