What to do with that Old Computer?

I recently discovered it is better to give than to receive. If you got a new computer as a Christmas present, and you are ready to replace, sell, or retire your old computer, it's very important to eradicate personal data stored on its hard drive before unplugging it for the last time. You should always remember that even though you manually delete computer files, an identity thief might still be able to recover them, possibly putting you or your family at risk.

Files you should remove before you donate or sell your computer:

• E-mail contacts
• E-mail messages
• All documents
• All files in the operating system recycle bin or trash folder
• Internet files
• All non-transferable software (most software is transferable if you have the original disks and product key)

Options for removing files from your computer:

1. Remove the files yourself at home using disk-cleaning software. It's not difficult to do, and many cleaning utilities are free. Some currently available are listed below.
2. Call the computer manufacturer's technical services department and ask how to delete personal files (your computer might need to be under warranty for this service).
3. Take your hard drive to a local reputable computer supplier to have them safely overwrite your files.
4. Buy a new hard drive (they are really cheap now) and just keep the old drive in a external drive enclosure (USB 2 or firewire) box or install it in an open internal drive bay in your new computer. I planned ahead by purchasing a small drive with my last desktop PC and removed it after I copied the OS and programs onto a second larger drive I purchased at significant savings (see my free after rebate post). I removed the small drive, and made the large drive my primary drive. Should my large primary drive fail, it's 5-year warranty and my periodic backup of the data can get me back to normal in a hurry.

Shared Windows disk-cleaning utilities (free of charge):
• Weberaser Demo
• Active Kill Disk: Hard Drive Eraser
• Disk Cleaner
• Sure Delete
• Others available on Shareware.com

My favorite was Eraser. It ran from a floppy and provided a low-level format tool that overwrote each byte. Problem: what if you don't have a floppy? Answer: plan ahead by building an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows with some tools also available as shareware. It has eraser and other disk management tools in a "pre-installation environment" CD that can be built from your Windows CD and the downloaded free-ware programs.

Once you've cleaned the personal data from your old computer (and you don't plan to or are unable to sell it), what should you do with it? You can trade it in to SchoolPop to get some cash and see it used for classroom education. cnet.com has a link to the service that is operated by Market Velocity. Search for trade-in on their home page. Otherwise, consider donating or recycling.

Donate
If your unwanted computer still works, donating it is probably the best way to go, and doing so will help keep toxins such as lead, mercury, and other electronic byproducts out of the environment. Each computer dumped in a landfill is a missed opportunity to provide a computer for others to use through one of the more than 400 nonprofit or school-based refurbishers around the country. In addition, depending on the current market value of your donated computer, you might be able to deduct its value from your taxes (refer to current federal and local tax laws for more information).

Recycle
If your computer is an older model (five years is typically the maximum for donating), doesn't work, or donating isn't otherwise an option, you can dispose of it responsibly with the help of a qualified recycler near you, such as those found on the Electronics Equipment Recyclers Contact List or the Electronics Recycling Initiative Web site.

Black Friday Free after Rebate

I waited until this weekend to discuss the rebate subject. If you took advantage of the IT deals last week that followed Thanksgiving Day, you could not help but noticing many are "Free" after rebate (FAR).

Some suggestions on dealing with rebates.

• First, never buy anything you don't need just because it's FAR. A web page that announces these deals is slickdeals.net. You can have them contact you in various ways. I get it daily on my PDA with AvantGo service.
• Second, if you wanted to buy it anyway, you should be willing to submit your rebate in a timely manner. I usually attempt to submit rebates by the next postal day.
• Third, track it. Prior to submission, they always state to keep a copy of the materials. Some stores will make the copy for you in the store. Some let you submit online. In either case, keeping the evidence of your rebate is a key to getting past some "consumer" indifference offered by the rebate center when you make an inquiry in absence of these materials. I generally approach it two ways-I make an entry in the register of the MS Money software that includes essential info-date of purchase, product name, rebate number, and the rebate phone/web contact info. I also scan the rebate materials as adobe reader docs (those .pdf files). This allows me to easily track this information and setup reminders of when the rebates are due. Also, it keeps the clutter put away and organized.
• Fourth, follow up. If the rebate check is late, contact them right away. I've never had an issue with a legitimate rebate center contact for a past due check. They get paid to provide the service to the Parent Company, and want to get your rebate processed-that is how they get paid! The few that took issue with this never sent me a check. Contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) if that occurs. The FTC may not get your money back, but they will investigate the reports. They have a listing of those under investigation if curious.

Of course the scanner and software I use were free after rebate.....

Short message services on your Cell Phone

What is Google SMS? (Info is from the Google SMS page.)

Google SMS (Short Message Service) enables you to send queries as text messages over your mobile phone or device and easily get precise answers to your questions. No links. No web pages. Just text — and the information you're looking for:
Get local business listings when you're on the road and want to find a place to eat.
Obtain driving directions to get from point A to point B without having to ask for directions.
Find movie showtimes and theater locations of movies currently playing near you.
Check weather conditions and 4-day forecasts to plan your day.
Study the latest stock quotes and stay on top of the market.
Get quick answers to straightforward questions.
Compare online product prices with ones you find in retail stores.
Look up dictionary definitions to expand your vocabulary or prove a point.

How do I use it?

Enter your query as a text message.
Send the message to the US shortcode 46645 (GOOGL on most phones).
Receive a text message (or messages) with your results, usually within a minute. Results may be labeled as "1/3", "2/3", etc.
To get Google SMS help info sent directly to your phone, send the word 'help' as a text message to 46645. Try our online demo.
Want to learn more?
Find more information with our sample queries
Download our wallet-sized Tips Sheet. [pdf]
Do you have more questions? Look through our Frequently Asked Questions.
Google SMS is available on all major carriers.

Using AvantGo on Your PDA

I really love AvantGo...been using it for years. So it seemed timely to write this up in the blogger.

It makes a wonderful addition to PDA applications. And you can't beat the price - FREE.
I especially like the following channels:

AccuWeather.com - current weather for up to two predefined locations

American Airlines - flight schedules at your fingertips

CNET - news at your fingertips

USATODAY.com - headlines from USA today

There is one other channel that until recently was really useful: the Yahoo! channel. Problem was it has issues with moving data from your Yahoo portal to AvantGo. It recently stopped giving news and movie schedules-stuff I use most, so I found a way to fix the problem.

After doing some web research, I found out that there appears to be some problem which has been around for a while, but remains unresolved. I was really bummed, because I grown spoiled to having a really good movie reviews and showtimes feed (MovieMinder).

AvantGo knows about this problem and I also told Yahoo Mobile. The work around from AvantGo was to use Hollywood.com. Unfortunately, Hollywood.com doesn't quite measure up - actually, it doesn't even come close. On the other hand, Yahoo!'s movie section on their portal is really good. But, that was one of the features that didn't work on the AvantoGo channel. I had just about given up, when I was inspired to do a search on web and found some info about in a Yahoo! search (as opposed to a Google search). Yahoo! has a WAP service, but trying to use the pda on-line is subject to your connectivity, and AvantGo stores pages when you are not connected. So the WAP pages work great as Personal Channels on AvantGo! If you started with the URL for the main Yahoo! WAP pages: http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/ , that choice requires customized information for some of the sub-pages, and your interface must support cookies, which AvantGo channels do not.

Fortunately, there is another work-around. Rather than configuring the main page as a channel, you can configure each of the sub-pages as a channel. Using this method, you can use a URL which includes the identifying information needed to generate the desired results. The easiest way to do this is to open the Yahoo! WAP page in your PC's browser, then navigate to each of the sub-pages, filling in the required identifier (usually your zip code), then copying the address of the resulting page into the Personal Channel configuration screen in AvantGo.

TIP: after you set up each page, make sure to click on the Personal Channels link to open a new default Personal Channel page. If you just go edit the name and URL after clicking the "save channel" button, only your last entry will actually be saved.

For example, for the Yahoo! Movies page for theaters in an area, the URL is: http://acid1.oa.yahoo.com/mbl/mov/home?&addr=&ct=YOURCITY&st=YOURSTATE&zip=YOURZIP&air=

Weather is http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=weather&&addr=&ct=YOURCITY&st=YOURSTATE&zip=YOURZIP&air=
(where YOURCITY, YOURSTATE, YOURZIP would be replaced with values for your desired location) My weather info is still working via Yahoo! directly.


News is http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=news

Hope this helps you set up the channels.

Making Money on Stuff I already paid for once

I recently noticed a service offered through Circuit City that’s called "Get Digital". When you sign up, they send a CD spindle and shipping container to you, they take your CDs, organize, tag, and "burn" them onto DVD (s), then load them onto your player as MP3 files. They return your player, original CDs, and DVD MP3 archive back to you. Costs are 1.39 per CD (that’s about 0.10 per track) for less than 200 CDs and seem to have it all covered. If you are interested you can look them up at www.getdigitalinc.com or from the Circuit City web pages. Sounds like what you would like someone else to do for you. They include the album cover art in the tag, so it’s a great way to organize your CD collection. The 192 KBPS bit rate is popular, but practically all of mine are ripped at the CD-quality 128 KBPS. You’d have your music loaded (or loadable) on your player, and you can just take it with you in the car or plug it in to your entertainment center and listen to them all properly cataloged and organized.

The newer DVD players play the DVDs with MP3, but on the PC, you can just copy it over to your hard drive and the free windows media software would see the tags and automatically build your music library for you. iTunes and Musicmatch also build your library for free, and all three programs recognize the mp3 files as native without need to convert. So whatever player or service option you choose, they all use these tags and file formats. Napster, Rhapsody, iTunes, etc. only automatically tag the music that you download, and then do not let you keep your "downloaded" music if you stop paying for the monthly service unless you had burned them to a standard audio CD. Your license expires and the digital rights management built into their software locks you out. Both Windows Media (MSN Music) and Musicmatch want you to pay $20 per year to use their tagging feature now (it used to be free) to tag the tracks in your library.

On a personal note, I have many hours invested in organizing my digital music collection, it would be worth the price just to have someone else do it right the first time. If I had to do it all over again, that type of service would be the way to go. I’m up to nearly 8000 tracks on a 60GB color iPod. I had BestBuy install a iPod adapter that makes my iPod work directly through my car stereo like a CD changer ($200). The only music service that provides mp3 files directly as a download is e-music. I signed up with them for a trial period and got 50 free tracks as mp3 file downloads for the first month. When I wanted to bail out, they offered me three months "lite" service for 20 downloads a month at 5.95 a month to change my mind- if you want to compare an online service as an option that would be the only one I’d even try and recommend.