Local boy Geek writes first book on podcasting

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We are oh-so-proud of Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central. Todd has just announced his book, Podcasting: Do It Yourself Guide which will soon be on shelves everywhere and of course including Amazon.com.
Support your local Geek! Get the Book!

Ryan Ozawa over at HawaiiPodcasting.com (where yours truly is also a member) put out a great press release. Go check him out.

What’s very cool about this is that a local guy becomes the first to write a book on podcasting. Podcasting is a really, really new thing, just over 6 months old. It’s quickly taking the country by storm and essentially creating a new media. We’re so proud to have a fellow Geek (hey, what’s your Geek score anyway Todd?) right in our backyard be one of the pioneers of a new industry.

Way to go Todd! We’ll be rooting for you man! šŸ™‚

Want a super-quiet computer? Sink it in a vat of mineral oil

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OK now here’s a wild post if there ever was one. I found about this guy that submerged his entire motherboard, complete with Fan, in an aquarium filled with mineral oil.

wow.

What an experiment! Looks like everything but the drives and power supply are in the tank.

Now, why would someone want to do that? Simple: zero noise and no problems with heat.

Video Games good for your health

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Finally, there’s research that’s bringing out what gamers like me already know: Video games are not only way better than watching TV, but have many health benefits. I caught this cool article in GMSV with some things to think about:

“The people who play games are into technology, can handle more information, can synthesize more complex data, solve operational design problems, lead change and bring organizations through change,” says Chip Luman

hiring managers? maybe you want to find out if they play video games because:

research on managerial behavior that indicated gamers were better risk-takers, showed particular confidence in their abilities, placed a high value on relationships and employee input and thought in terms of “winning”‘ when pursuing objectives.

So now, you can quote this post when you need to justify to your family as to why it’s 3am and you’re still firing away. šŸ™‚

Geek test says Peter Kay is a “Computer God”

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I just took this online geek test. It was a riot and I scored 97%! For “old timers” like me some of the questions brought back some fond memories, like programming on my Commodore 64 and connecting at 1200 (wait, 300!) baud.

Here’s my Geek Score:

My computer geek score is greater than 97% of all people in the world! How do you compare? Click here to find out!

Take the test and see how you compare! Post your comments here.

When was the last time you tested your backup by actually restoring files?

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Aloha, Iā€™m Peter Kay with Your Computer Minute. When was the last time you backed up your computer? Fairly recent, Iā€™ll bet, at least I hope. But, when was the last time you tested restoring from a backup. Iā€™ll bet that youā€™ve never done that, right? Folks, youā€™re flirting with disaster. Most of us feel real good about making backups but very few, if any of us have ever tested restoring from backup. Too many times Iā€™ve seen people be very diligent about backups only to find out that when they really needed to restore it didnā€™t work and the result was a disaster. Donā€™t let this happen to you! If youā€™ve never tested restoring then youā€™ve never really backed up. Make sure you thoroughly test both your backups and your restores and only then can you rest easy. Iā€™m Peter Kay with Your better safe than sorry Computer Minute, Aloha!

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Put your speedDialer on Steroids

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Iā€™ll bet youā€™re not making the most out of your cellphoneā€™s speeddial feature. Now Iā€™m sure that youā€™ve stored your most commonly called numbers in your phone. Thatā€™s good, but lets go beyond that. You can add pauses and special keys into those phone numbers to do more than just dial a number. For example, you can program your phone to dial into your office voicemail, enter the right password, and then retrieve all your new messages. Combine this with one touch speedialing and you are really hot. Iā€™ve done this with my phone and the push of one button saves me 24 keystrokes, and gets me into my voicemail faster and more accurately than ever before possible. Not only does this save all kinds of time but it really makes for safe driving too. You can also program your phone to automatically dial in your long distance phone card information. Check it out!

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Show Web Pages in your presentation without requiring a Net Connection

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If you have to make powerpoint presentations that include displaying Web pages, Iā€™ve got a great tip for you. Anyone thatā€™s made a presentation that involved a live net connection knows how unreliable that can be. The best way around that is to save the Web page to your local drive instead. I believe that Microsoftā€™s Internet Explorer version 5 gives you the best way to do that. Bring up the Web page you want to save, then go to the Save As menu. Thereā€™s a choice there to save as an mht file. Mht files are very cool because they store all the graphics and html into one file. Save each Web page you intend to include in your presentation as an mht file and then link to it from within your powerpoint slides. The result is a great presentation that works perfectly every time. If you make presentations youā€™ll love this awesome tip.

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Send SMS instead of leaving a voicemail

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. Does this sound familiar? You need to get a quick message to someone, so you call them on their cell phone, only to find you’ve interrupted them in a meeting. So they tell you to hang up, call back and leave a message. So you call, and then you wait for the voicemail greeting to end, and finally leave your message. Then your friend has to call into their voicemail, and listen to your message, then call you back, and of course by then you’re not available. So your friend gets thrown into your voicemail, and over the course of a few days you realize the two of you are spending more time talking to voicemail than to each other. Now if you’re between the ages of 15 and 29, you probably are laughing about this because you use text messages instead. So here’s a word to the rest of us caught up in voicemail tag: learn how to send text messages from your phone. Once you get the hang of it, it’s fast, easy, and really effective.

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Simple Outlook trick that helps you remember logins/passwords forever

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Lots of Web sites require you to register with a login ID and password to access valuable features or content. And if youā€™re like me youā€™ve registered yourself at who-knows-how-many Web sites. The problem is that itā€™s impossible to remember all those logins and passwords. Hereā€™s a simple solution if you use Microsoft Outlook. Youā€™ll notice that Outlook has a little notes folder that kinda works like an electronic postit note. Every time you create a new login and password, copy that information into a new note along with the Web site address and a brief comment. If you ever forget that login and password combination just right click on the notes icon and do a search. Outlook will quickly find the answer for you and off you go. Save those valuable brain cells for remembering important things like your anniversary, not your Yahoo password.

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Capture Screen shots for presentations

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Have you ever wanted to quickly capture a shot of your computer screen? Itā€™s really easy when you use the printscreen key. In todayā€™s digital world, we all run into situations when we really need to show someone what our computer screen looks like. This is really handy for things like getting technical support, writing training manuals, and giving presentations. If you want to capture an image of your current screen, hereā€™s all you have to do: Click on the window of the application you want to get a screen shot of, then hold down your ALT key and press on the ā€œprint screenā€ button on your keyboard. Then click into your favorite application and simply do a ā€œpasteā€ operation. Youā€™ll magically see the screen image appear and then you can manipulate it as needed. This is a really handy feature Iā€™ve used countless times and Iā€™m sure youā€™ll love it.

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