No More Classic?

This Wednesday September 9th Apple will be holding a press event witch more then likely they will be revealing new IPods and maybe a tablet. But my focus right now is the IPods and what they might announce. For years there have always have had new IPod classics my feeling is just like the Power PC  Apple is going to cut the classic for the line. You might think this is crazy but there are good reason why they might do this.

One reason might be that the IPod classic is really more space then what most people need. Not every one has a music collection that is a 160 GB or more most people (me included) have 8 GB or 16 GB IPod that is more then enough room for music, videos, and other things. Most people that have collections bigger then that already have a classic have found other ways to get there music around.

My other reason to think they might be getting rid of the classic is that the touch will be the top IPod and the other iPods will be modeled after it form now on. I think that they will all have a touch screen interface or they will have a way to use the mobile OS X 3.0 with the click wheel. Now you may be thinking well why couldn’t the classic run that then? Well my answer is they want all there IPods to have soled state drives and right now to get a 160 GB or more soled state drive you are looking at around $600 witch means you would be paying allot more for a classic then the rest of the IPod line.

I do think that Wednesday they will get rid of the Classic. It is just unnecessary to have it any longer. Though this is all speculation so for all I know they could come out with a new and it will do everything the touch can do but with the click wheel. I just don’t know it but it is fun to guess. I just want this to happen I think more then anything. If you have an idea what might happen send me tweet on twitter samliikecoke or leave a comment =].

Technorati Tags: Ipod,Classic,Apple,Touch,Click wheel,Mobile OS X 3.0,SSD

Hamachi

Last Thursday on Teckzilla they got a question about VPN’s and they came up with two good free ones Open VPN and Hamachi by log me in. I thought about doing Open VPN but I did not have a spare PC to install it on so I then Looked at Hamachi I downloaded it and installed it and what can I say it worked. It took me a bit to hang of how to set it up but now that I have I love it. Now as long as I have a internet connection I can get to my files on my network drive as if I’m home and that is the part I most like about Hamachi also I don’t even have to config my router firewall or open any ports. It just works. At the bottom is a clip from teckzilla from Thursday enjoy.

Just A Little Change

By now you might have noticed that there are ads on the site now. Well I know cause I put them there. I just thought that maybe I can make I can make a few cents off of this blog I thought it might be cool. Making money really is not the point as to why I do this it it because I I just want to have a voice in the tech world. If the ads are annoying to anyone who dose read this blog place tell me on twitter and I will try and make them less annoying or even get rid of them.

Thanks,

-Mike

Securing Your WIFI

Every place I go and look for WIFI everyone has there WIFI encrypted with WEP. Witch I guess is better then having your WIFI out in the open with no encryption. But still you can just Google cracking WEP and get a program that can crack it in seconds. So you might be thinking what do I do then, well there is only one thing you can do and that is turn on WPA encryption. Most routers now come with a quick setup CD and when you get to setting up the security by default most routers are set to WEP cause when you do WPA windows by default dose not authenticate for WPA encryption so what you see is in the net work discovery list is this

 

witch means you cant get online. what you have to do now is follow these steps:

Go Start and then Connect to.

Then you should go to the connect to screen with all the networks in the area. Right click on your network and go to properties.

Once the properties are open click security type and switch it to WPA2 personal and encryption type to AES.

Now just hit ok and you should connect to your network and now you have a stronger encryption. Just remember when you make the password when you setup the router you make it random and long to increase the strength of the password.

Technorati Tags: WIFI,WPA,WEP,network,encryption,security,how to

What Is A Browser?

A few days a go I had to help a friend with a problem with a problem. I got to her computer using logmein and what was the first thing I saw IE it didn't surprise me really cause I know her and her family aren’t geeks so they are happy with that. But when I suggest they use Firefox instead of IE I was then asked what is IE, so I told her that it was the browser that she is using now. Then I herd what is a browser? Right then I wanted to be like are you kidding, but then thought to my self and relies that most people really don’t know what a browser is or what it dose. For the most part people just see it as this thing that thing that takes them to Myspace or Facebook. They have no idea what it can do for them or even how to do it.

I really don’t know what to think at first. I mean ya N00b comes to mind but I’m not that mean. As I think about it security wise I think well IE is unsecure wile Firefox is secure. For me that more then enough  resin to switch to another browser. The other thing that comes to mind too is its a basic thing a browser that I find is one of though’s things that you should know how to use just like how to turn on the computer and shut it down. Cause lets face it the browser is going to replace the operating system one day. We now know this cause of the announcement of the Chrome OS by Google.

Though back to my friend I tried to get them to switch but… before I could even download it, it came back saying her computer didn’t meat the minimum requirements for Firefox 3.5, so she has other problems other than she is running IE. But for all the others that know better if you family that is still using IE I say if they are doing allot online shopping or banking you should moving to another browser other then IE even if its not Firefox just something elts or sandbox it at the vary lest.

Technorati Tags: IE,Firefox,Google,Chrome,OS,Internet Explorer,Browser,Myspace,Facebook,logmein

How Social Media has Changed My Life

Back when I was a freshman 4 years ago I wanted nothing to do with Myspace or Facebook. I just thought they were a waste of time and if I wanted to talk to my friends I would just IM them or text them. It just seemed senseless to get a Myspace account. By November that year pretty much everyone I knew had a Myspace page and so I gave in. At first I will say I didn’t like it, though I don’t normally like things when I first tried it. It took about 3 months to like it. Once I liked it though that was it just became a habit when I got up every morning to get on my computer and check my messages and request.

Myspace let me then become friends with others that I would never would have had the chance to become friends with before. Though I do think it comes at a price because most them are far away like on the other side of the county in some cases and I would love to hang out them but I can’t and I know its not impossible but for now it is difficult and there many times in witch it saddens me that I can’t be there for them when maybe they need it. But the good times I feel over come it.

Though then I went to Ustream and there is ware I found my best friend TheVixy and she showed me this new social network called twitter and that was it I never looked back on that and I loved it. I have learned so much about people that I have looked up to now since I was in 5th grade watching Tech TV like Leo Laporte and Chris Pirillo and so much more and I have even gotten to talk to them. These are people that like I said look up to there like heroes like how a normal person might look up to a serten celebrity that's how I looked up to them and to get to talk to them really blow my mind it was amazing.

Now lets bring in Facebook another one ware I tried it and hated it and it took me sometime to like but once I did I saw all the flaws in Myspace and went running for Facebook. I loved the use of fan pages and liking things on there its just so addictive and how I can just plug in other sites to it, it is amazing and I use it more then I ever did Facebook.

How has social media changed my life? Well it has strength existing friendships, it has aloud me to find new friendships and gotten a taste of life in different parts of the country. I feel now more well rounded because of that. It has caused me though some pain that I would not have had if not for social media. For the most part I feel so much better off that I have excepted social media and so much less alone.

Technorati Tags: Myspace,Facebook,Twitter,Thevixy,Friendship,Social Media,Social Networking,Friends

Are Social Networks The New Operating Systems?

Windows 7 and OS X Snow leopard is coming out soon, but dose anyone really care? There are some people that care windows fan boys, hackers, and Apple fans. but out side of them dose anyone care, I think not. Now if I were to say facebook 2.0 is coming out or myspace 3.0 people would probably freak.

Now Why is that? Well Social networks are something we use now everyday. When was the last time you got an e-mail from a friend in your e-mail that was not a alert to say you got a message on facebook. I know I haven't. The only purpus for my e-mail ate this point is to alert me when I have messages on my facebook or myspace accounts that's about it. Now we are getting to ware Mac VS PC dose not matter its going to be do I join Facebook or Myspace and really that decision comes down to two things, do I like the UI and are most of my friends on here.

Now I know there free so why not use both. You can but there is going to be one that you use more. I know people that use OS X and Windows but they all have one they like more and that is what they use. Same thing goes

with Social networks. Right now both Facebook and Myspace have applications that you can use on there sites most are pretty trivial, but one day I hope get better. Though I have seen some on Facebook that look cool. My point being there platforms that witch other software runs on just like windows or OS X.

For now these social networks are what we use to talk and communicate with one another. One day soon they will more important then what what OS you run now or what Browser you use it will be who you are.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,OS X Snow Leopard,Facebook,Myspace,Scocial Networking,Scocial Meadia,OS,Operating Systems

What Went Wrong With Vista

In October Windows 7 will come out over shadowing Windows Vista. Vista will be lost in time to be forgotten by Microsoft. Well I think we should take this time to look back at what went wrong with Vista.

Vista was in beta along time with the code name windows long horn. I do think this might have been part of Vista’s down fall because wile Microsoft window was busy trying to get Long Horn together we were happy with XP and got to know XP maybe better then any other Microsoft OS. It just became what you thought of a OS to be. Now going back to the long beta of Long Horn there were resends why it was delayed so long. Now I never was in the beta for vista but from everything that I have read and herd they basically tried to build it off of the .Net frame work and it just was not up to the task of running a OS. So a lot of the stuff we see are coming out for Windows 7 was originally part of Vista but they had to take it out because the had to start all over again and rush it out the door. Witch of course is going to lead to problems latter on.

The second Thing that cause Vista to fail was it came out in January after the holidays. Now why would they do that? Wouldn’t it have made more sences to have released it in November? Or even August when kids are going back to school or college and are looking for new computers? But no it came out in January once everything was said and done.

Now the third thing that killed Vista and this is the big one was the Mac VS PC ad’s Apple came out with. People saw these ad’s and believed every word. Most likely they believed it because they probably knew someone that had Vista the day it came out and lets face it vista had problems when it first came out, But so did XP and 2000, ME, 98, 95. So did OS 10.5 and im sure all the other meager upgrades to OS X did as well. What most people don’t know is When OS’s come out they all have problems but people saw these ad’s and believed it and that was that.

Even though when Microsoft came out with Service Pack 1 for Vista and had fixed most of the meager problems that consumers had with Vista it was to late people were ether staying with XP or moving to a Mac. This I found sad because for home users I think vista is grate I use it everyday and I have never had a problem. Though I realize Im just one person and that im sure others have had problems cause of one reason or anther.

In October windows 7 will come out now im not saying they cut Vista’s time on this Earth sort Vista has been out long enough and its time for windows 7 but what is windows 7?  Windows 7 is everything Vista was suppose to be and much more there really isn’t much new under the cover but there is on the cover. Hopefully Microsoft has learned from there mistakes. Witch it seems like they have with the adds they have been putting out there like Im a PC ads and the Laptop hunter ad’s.

Lets hope that Microsoft can now but Vista be hind them and look forward towards windows 7 with things like XP mode in Windows 7 compatibility should be a thing of the past. All I really can say now is good luck Microsoft you will need it.

Technorati Tags: Windows Vista,Windows 7,Im a PC,Laptop Hunter,Mac,OS X,Windows 98,Windows 95,Windows ME,Windows 200,Windows XP,Long Horn

Letting The Bird Spred Its Wings and Fly Away

I'm starting to see it. Its all round now people wanting me to follow them on twitter. I know that dose not sound odd but now it is normal people my friends that in less than a year ago never herd of it and didn’t get the point. What made me sick though was watching techzilla and hearing Veronica Belmont ask the person she was interviewing if he thought that celebrates getting on twitter was the start of the MySpace affectation of twitter and it made me sick. I really don't want to see twitter become the next MySpace. I mean yes its nice that twitter is getting popular but I kind of liked saying twitter and no one knowing what I was talking about. It was nice. Though I guess twitter is like a bird and it is time to let it grow up and leave the nest. Something new will come along and the same thing will happen to that too I'm sure but that is the way of the web.

The Next OS is Coming… Who Cares?

Windows 7 is coming soon and so is snow leopard. But really dose it really matter. I guess it dose right now but I think by the time windows 7 reaches end of life I think that it wont matter because no one will be running applications on there PCs like they do now. They will be doing cloud computing. Using web apps. More and more I know I find my self using the web to do things that maybe a few years ago I would have to go out and find software and install it on my PC. Lets look at Microsoft for a sec things keep getting striped out of windows and sooner or latter there going to end up with just windows that can run a browser witch will be a true cloud OS. There are many people that are a bit scared of this (myself included) that it will be a security and just a plan pain to keep everything on the web. By this I mean that if we keep every thing in the cloud then when we need what we need up there it may not be there when we need it. For now everything is safe on my PC and just my e-mail and a few small documents are up in the cloud right now I still think that Microsoft will be the first with a true cloud OS.

We Follow

About a week a go Kevin Rose lunched his Twitter directory site we follow. I didn’t get it at first I will admit and I didn’t bother with it for awhile but last night I thought I should add my self to it and see what happens. Well about 30 minutes latter I started getting adds on twitter ya they were just promotional things and clubs but it worked and one of them I will talk about when it comes out. But back to we follow. We follow is pretty simple to set up you just @wefollow and make tags as to what you talk about on your twitter stream like I put @wefollow #tech #blogger #photography and I was then put on those categories on we follow. We follow makes it so much easier to find people that are going to talk about things that you want to see on your stream on twitter. They rank them too so you know who is worth following but the ranks change from category to category so Kevin Rose is number 1 under #tech but he might be number 50 under #tea.  If you are looking to find more followers on Twitter then add your self to the directory and see how many you get you got nothing to lose.

What is the next Twitter?

Twitter the micro blogging social network we all love and some of us have loved for awhile is now all grown up. Its popular with people in Hollywood and the geeks like leo Laporte are now pushed way under by well famous people. So what dose that mean the early adopters need to find something new. But what is it? I think it could be friend feed. Why do I think this well it brings all the social media stuff together as your life feed and I think makes it all a little bit more mange able. I have a friend feed account that my best friend @thevixty made for me awhile ago but I just never really got into it. I think though with twitter being so popular and soon my friends probably using it its time to find something elts. Not that I’m leaving twitter I love twitter and with friend feed I don't have to choose I can still twitter using it and all the other things I can do I still use just with friend feeds end. So I will be looking at Friend Feed all this week and trying to get into it as much as I can.

When you need a back up computer

Themegatech blog show from Michael Blake on Vimeo.

A few Tips to Secure your New PC

Im sure allot of you who read this blog our the family tech support or neighborhood IT department. So you probably have to set-up a new PC now and then I think you should do a few things to make sure that your not being called back a million times because there PC is Loaded with spy ware.

1. Take off any Crapware on the PC. Allot of times when people buy new computers it loaded with crap that they will never need.
2. Run windows update as soon as you get a connection. Most of the PCs coming out now have Vista with SP1 although that is good there are allot of dates since then and they are all important. You may also want to set windows update to download and install for them as well.
3. Make two user accounts on the PC one admin and one limited. Although yes even as admin on Vista your really limited you still should do this because if you were admin you might just hit continue with out looking to see what you were giving admin rights. With being limited you have to use a password to do it and that gives you time to look and see what it is.

I hope these tips help you with setting up these new computers.

Welcome To The New Mega Tech Blog Site

I’ve been saying and saying that I was going to change the URL to the mega tech blog for awhile now and finally last night I said I was going to do it so here it is I did. I changed the look too but the important thing all the old post are right here. So I hope you like the changes I made and if you have any questions or suggestions please e-mail me at samlikecoke90@gmail.com. I hope you all like the changes =].

Networking

Recently a friend of mine got a wii. She wants to play it online but she cant because they don’t have there router set up. Why is that well cause they didn’t know how so I’m hoping to fix that with this little tutorial. so here it is.

1) you need to unbox it there should be a Ethernet cord in the box.

2)  look at the back of it there should be at least 5 Ports in the back 1 for the cable/DSL modem and 4 for computers.

3) now place the Ethernet going from your cable modem to the router (it is probably connected in the back of your PC right now)

4) Plug the Ethernet cord that came with the router into one of the Ports in back of the router and the other end plug in ware the cable modem we plugged in to on your PC.

5) Ok now turn on your computer and it may make some noise. now open up your internet browser ( Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari.) and type in 192.168.2.1 in the address bar.

6) Now you should see a page find ware it says login and just hit submit because there should be no password.

7) Now go to ware it says channel and SSID and just change the name from the default to something elts. Then hit apple.

8) now go to ware it says Security and chose what kind of Encryption type like WEP WPA. If your doing it to so the Wii can use it probably should do WEP. When you select it it should come up with a long line of numbers and letters write it down some ware you will need it when you go to your wii and set it up.

just hit apple and it should restart again and your online. I hope this is helpful to other people other than my friend.

Undoing the Cable.

More and more lately I look over at my cable box and think why are you still here. I never watch TV on my TV anymore. I’m about to walk out of my room with it in hand say here I don’t need it anymore. Most shows I watch are podcast and any TV shows I want to see are on hulu or the adobe media player. Its had to give it up because there is like one show can’t find that I can legally watch on the web and that is Big Bang Theory. Witch kind of shocks me that its not on the web. Well hopefully it will and there is the pirate bay to get the show if I really want to watch it. Its there fault they should have it on the web I would watch one maybe to ad’s if I have to but no its not on the web so tuff shit to CBS then. I'm almost serten now that I will do this though I’m not paying the cable bill so I probably will keep it.

The Forgotten Virtual PC Software

I listen to alto of podcast and a few of them do tech support questions. A lot of times they get people that want to move from windows XP to Vista or PC to Mac but wont because of one or 2 applications that wont work with the new thing that they want. Well that's when the hosts sagest things like VMware and Parallels. These are good Virtual PC software  but they are so expensive. I don’t see why they don’t tell them to use virtual box its a grate VM software and it is free. I'm sure there are things that VMware and Parallels can do that Virtual Box cant but I think if your still wanting to use older software and want the new thing too its grate.Revision 3’s system did an episode about VM’s it was grate and that is ware I first herd of Virtual Box. So try it you got nothing to lose its free and its grate for trying out Linux OS’s.

The system episode I talked about in the post.

The New Browser War

For awhile now we have been seeing the beginning of a new browser war. What I find funny is that it is with the same two browsers again. Internet explorer and Netscape great grandson Mozilla Firefox. It’s like a horror movie for Microsoft I think. They killed monster once (Netscape) and now in a new form it has come back stronger and better than it once was and now Microsoft has to fight it off again. But it is losing.

For thought’s of you who do not know what I’m talking about the browser war is what it was called when in 1993 Netscape came out with a browser called Netscape communicator and Microsoft soon relies that well maybe they would should get on this internet thing so they came out with internet explorer. By the end of the 90’s they had destroyed Netscape.

Although the original Netscape has been gone for a long time now the sores code floated around the internet and a company named Mozilla witched they then improved and slightly changed to be there first browser Mozilla. Then sometime latter it became Mozilla Firefox.

With Internet explorer 6 so in secure it gave a lot people a wreathen to switch from IE to Firefox. Which is now IE’s down fall and even with their soon to be realest Internet Explorer 8 hopes are not high? IE 8 is supposed to work better with web standers unlike other versions of IE. Although it does the mark of IE has already been made even their own sites do not work right yet with IE 8 because most web servers see IE and render the page how IE likes it to be render.

I think this just show that IE is paying for its sins you could say. I’m not saying there will be a world without IE cause its part of windows and although I don’t use it much there are times when flash or some plug in go’s bad in Firefox and it just won’t work right and I need to get something done and that is ware IE comes in handy cause it has sonority so every web page works with it. Though I’ am glad for Firefox I love some many featchers in it that I couldn’t just name one or two. So who ever winds this time I hope doesn’t become a tyrant like Microsoft did.

-Mike

Why Is It So Hard

Today I went to Walmart and well I hate Walmart, I’m not sure if I have really ever said that on here but just so you know I hate Walmart. Its not even the whole chine's thing or that they pay there employs shit its because there are so many people there and most of them I wish just wouldn’t open there mouth. But these people are the common windows users witch scare me.

I was checking out and the lady doing it was older but had no clue what she was talking about she was talking to the older lady in front of me about the computer she got recently and went on to say how she got vista and how she doesn't know it but she said she had XP before that and now she has to learn ware things are allover again and she wished that there was classis to learn vista but she only find place for windows 2005(and what the hell is that the only thing I could think of is windows server most likely).

So I under stand she was old computers are a whole new world for her but i really think that computers Windows or Mac are not that hard to get use to. But normal people go into this with the whole thought of ooo computers scary and so they make it allot harder than they should be.They wont try things cause they think they are going to brake it but I really find that not true. I was like that for awhile I will admit when I got my first PC when I was in 3rd grade but then I learned to back up and what the restore disks did and I was never afraid to do anything. Now I still don’t touch anything in the BIO settings but I think that is a give in unless you know what you are doing.

Also these people don’t know how to secure them selves online either and in that case they are a danger to them selves and others. These people don’t update there computer and think as long as I got Nortan anti virus I'm safe and nothing can hurt my computer. That right there is scary to me too and the anti viruses companies don’t really correct that either. Then when you tell them the truth they say “Well why do I need a anti virus then if it doesn't help me” and you have to try to tell them is more a safety net.

Its a mess out there and I really wish there were more people like well Leo Laporte cause I think he dose do a good job of explaining to the normal user these things. A lot better than I can I try as I might but there just so much I can do because of the generation gap its easier for him because well he is older and can relate to them than a 18 year old could to a 50 year old. When I try to explain something to my friends who are around my age I can relate things to them and they can under stand what I 'am talking about.  Maybe there will be one day where people understand computers a little bit more then they do now but until then I still have to run to my grandparents just so I can restart there computer and say and its fixed lol.

-Mike