Review Otterbox iPhone Case

Yes, the new iPhone 4 is out but for some of use we can't make the upgrade yet so we need to keep our iPhone 3G and 3GS safe and secure.  I would love to say that iPhones are rugged and so well built that they don't need a case, but the majority of people will find that they drop their phones more frequently than they would like.

If you're one to drop your shiny $500 piece of phone hardware daily you need a case that can take a beating.  The Otterbox is such a case.  This case provides several forms of protection from a silicone exterior that makes it hard to slip to a hard plastic case and screen protector, your iPhone is sealed up like Fort Knox.

Use Google Voice to Give Your Family a Local Number to Call You On

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm big into Google online services.  One of my favorite little known Google tools is Google Voice.  Google voice is a telephone service that allows you to tie multiple phones (land line, mobile, work) into one phone number.  For instance, you can set up Google Voice to ring your cell phone when your Google number is called, it will forward the incoming call and even the caller ID to your mobile phone.

The blessings and curses of adblocking plugins

One of my favorite things about the internet is that content is free.  Sure we have to pay our ISPs to connect to the web, but the pages we visit provide very useful enriching content that often takes a lot of work without asking you to pay anything.  The main way they pay for this is through online advertising, banner ads Google Adwords, etc.

This is all well and good as long as the ads are tasteful and not obtrusive or distracting - which leads me to one thing I hate about the internet, crazy ads that just hurt my eyes.  Some websites overload you with advertising some of which can be scams or malicious software advertisements, things you don't want to click on.  Enter Adblock browser plugins.  These plugins are useful to eliminate browsing distractions and are generally a very good thing to add to any browser.

Five Best Reasons to Use Google Calendar

Are you one of those people that would forget their own birthday if they didn't have it on a calendar somewhere?  How about friend birthdays, anniversaries, or important meetings?  One too many times I have either double-booked an appointment or completely forgot about something I had to do.  I used to keep a written planner/calendar in college, but I wouldn't use it everyday and would forget to check it.  In the age of technology, Internet, and cell phones there has to be a better way.  Enter Google Calendar (*heroic music*).

How to make your computer run faster part 3, a speedy startup

When your computer is fresh and new, it can boot up rather quickly.  Over time, things can slow down considerably because your system loads programs while it's starting your computer.  The more programs running at boot, the slower things can get.  For those of you who put your computers to sleep or hibernate, you probably don't restart your computer very often.  For the rest of us we sit and stare at our monitors for 2, 3, or even 5 or more minutes waiting to get a responsive system that is ready to go.

In the first installation of this series I showed you that your computer speed is often tied to your RAM.

In the second post in our series I showed you how speed your computer by getting rid of unneeded program baggage.

How to turn your Wii into a media center using Orb

In my continuing quest for all things geeky, I have discovered a gem for Nintendo Wii owners. A program called Orb enables you to view video, pictures, news feeds, and listen to music from your high-speed connected computer.  Orb also works with any computer that has a fast connection and a web browser, X-Box 360, and PS3.  There is even an iPhone application called OrbLive.  

Collect information online using the Google Docs "Forms" feature

You can create easy to manage forms and polls using Google Docs. If you're not familiar with Docs, check it out at http://docs.google.com

Five reasons you should be using Gmail

Gmail has been around for quite a while now.  From it's early days as an invite only service to last year when it finally left bet, Gmail has provided simple, effective, and powerful web-based email for millions.  Personally, I've been using Gmail since the invite-only days and I couldn't be happier with my experience.  Here is my five top reasons you should switch to Gmail for your primary email address.

1. Check your email from anywhere.  Some people still use ISP based email address (like @att.com, @aol.com, @earthlink.net, etc.).  These email addresses are usually set up to download locally to people's computers.  This works great when you are checking your email on your computer, but what when you're on a trip or using a friend's computer?  Gmail can be checked and used from any web browser and most email/data equipped cell phones.  If you have a device that has a web browser, you have access to your email all the time.
2. Incredible, super-effective email spam filters.  With Gmail, I have gone over a month without ever getting one spam message in my email inbox.  If I ever do get spam it is one click away from being reported as spam and removed from my inbox.  Gmail allows you to look through your spam messages as well to make sure that it didn't send a legitimate message to the spam folder.
3. Label your emails to keep them organized.  Gmail includes a powerful set of organization tools.  Among the best tools is the label system.  You can create and manage color-coded labels that act like folders keeping some emails separate from others.  
4. Filter your emails to automagically keep your inbox organized.  You can create Gmail filters that do everything from automatically sending some emails to the trash, to marking certain emails from a specific sender with a label.  Use the filters to automatically forward email from a domain or sender to another address.  
5. Your email is one quick search away.  Gmail gives your over 7 Gigabytes of storage and encourages you to archive your email instead of deleting it.  That means that if you need to look up an email from 5 years ago, you can type some words from the email, a sender name or address, or even a type of attachment and search through the results for the email.  This feature has saved my butt more than a few times.

Gmail is a powerful tool and one of the top email options out there.  I've only scratched the surface of what can be done with the web based Gmail and in the coming months I plan to share more of what this web app powerhouse can do.  Visit www.gmail.com to sign up today.

Some wise advise for those who use social media

People posting information about themselves on the internet is becoming a normal occurrence.  With social media sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter as well as blogs (like this one) - it can be scary how much information there is about you on the internet.

What many internet users don't realize is that people actually read their blogs and personal profiles. In fact, some schools and police departments actively search the internet for information about people. Users of blogs, Facebook, etc. need to realize that if they post any personal information, it has the potential to be read by anyone. That's right. In an age of identity theft and hackers, your information is not private even when a website claims that it is. If you can access your page from any computer, your info is fair game.

I have noticed another bad trend. Most young people no longer use email, their only source of online contact is through instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace. While email is a much safer option when it comes to your personal information, many young people are trading security for convenience.

Here are a few tips for protecting your privacy while using the internet:

1. Never give out your personal information (address, phone number, name, social security number, etc). If a website requires some personal info, make sure that it will not be shared with anyone...ever. Do not post your phone number or address on Myspace or other social networking site.

2. Do not put any information in your Facebook or on your blog that you don't want everyone in your life (and the world) to know. Do not trust the "private" features of these websites...they have been cracked before. If you leave yourself signed in to Facebook for instance, anyone can gain access to your account through your computer. This leads us to #3

3. Unless you are the only one that uses your computer, and you have a password - NEVER STAY LOGGED IN, SAVE YOUR PASSWORD TO THE COMPUTER, OR CHECK "REMEMBER ME" IN ANY WEB SERVICE. This is the most common way for others to gain access to your accounts. The second most common way...

4. Never, NEVER, NEVER, give your passwords to anyone, period. Just like gossip, you cannot control the spread of your password to others. Even if your friend never shares your password, they might by mistake allow someone else to access your account.

5. Use email for personal, private communication with other people. Email is much safer than putting your private communication up online for everyone to view. Just make sure you follow #3 and #4.


6. Never post your email address anywhere, period.  This leads to lots of unwanted spam messages.  If you must post your email somewhere, type it out so a human has to read it and not some computer program - like youraddress AT G M A I L Dot Com
Blogs and Facebook are great to keep in touch with your friends and family...just don't be stupid with them. Use common sense and be careful what you let the world know about you. One last tip... don't count on others to be computer illiterate. Your parents/friends can ask someone else to log on and view your profile. Be warned!  ;)

How to use Facebook Pages to promote your church group [Geek Your Church]

Facebook has become the premiere tool to promote products, groups, brands, and organizations. Because of its social nature, Facebook is an effective tool connect organically with friends and friends of friends.  My experience in the past has been as a youth pastor, but this could apply to any organization or business that is looking to promote their brand/product.

So why use Facebook for your group?  Here are a few great reasons:

• Your people are already using it.  Many people don't even visit websites anymore for information, they use social media platforms like Facebook to find what they need.
• Facebook is people focused, so are you.  The members of your church group have friends the do not attend your church and may never otherwise know about what you are doing.
• Let your people be the evangelists for your group.  They can invite their friends, promote events, and share how they are growing in their faith with people they have influence and relationships with.
• A well designed Facebook page can replace a website.  And it's FREE!  With discussion boards, the ability to add custom pictures and widgets, an events calendar, and news updates - Facebook is poised to provide the same rich content that a static website would provide.
• Have your group members find out about updates in their Facebook timelines.  For those who check their Facebook daily, this can be as effective or more than email for communicating.

Ready to get started?

Step 1: Sign up for a page

Notice I am saying "page" and not "group."  That's because Facebook has both pages and groups.  It used to be that the only way you can make a place for your group to interact was with Facebook groups.  These groups were treated separately from the normal timeline so people wouldn't see updates about the group regularly unless they checked.  Facebook wanted to do groups better and they didn't want to get rid of them so they created pages.  Pages are better because they act like a regular friend and can show up in the regular timeline of your group members.  Not only that, but Pages can add HTML and Application widgets that groups can not.  There really is no reason at all to use Facebook Groups for your church or organization.

With that said, lets get started signing up for a page.  Visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to get started.  You don't need a Facebook account to sign up, but if you're already logged in, the page will be created separate from your personal profile.  That means you can make status updates for your page without anyone knowing it's you doing the posting.

Step 2: Fill out your information & set up your page

You can fill out as much as you would like about your church/organization.  I suggest including a short description, you address, website, and meeting times. Make sure to include an image for your profile picture, a church logo would be good here.

Under edit page, you can add all kinds of applications and widgets.  Make sure to set up your page to be viewed by everyone in the settings and make it public.  Make sure your wall settings are set to your liking.  I would suggest letting your members make comments and posts on your wall.  It is social networking after all.  You can keep the crazies out by booting any "fans" that cause trouble.  As of now, Facebook does well to manage any random fan page spam.  None to speak of in my experience.

Step 3: Get "Fans"

On your page, you should find a link on the top left that says "suggest to friends."  Invite everyone you want from your friends list and invite them to invite their friends.  This is the beauty of social networking.  Your page fans will help you grow your page even larger if they get their friends to "like" it.  Everyone who "likes" your page will automatically get your news and status updates.  If you're managing a website, you can place a fan page widget on it for website visitors to subscribe to your facebook page.
You can find that widget here:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box. Place your facebook page ID in the setup wizard and it will give you the code to paste in your website.

Step 4: Get your Facebook url

Once you accumulate 50 fans or more on your Facebook page, you get to sign up for your own custom Facebook url.  This will be great to put on buisness cards and bulletins and should be easy for your church members to remember.  It's in the format: facebook.com/"yourgroupname"

If you have 50 fans right now, you can get your custom url by visiting http://www.facebook.com/username/ and selecting your page there.  You can also get a custom url for your normal Facebook account here as well.

Step 5: Keep your page updated!

The more you keep your Facebook page updated, the more your church/group members will see your updates and news in their timelines.  Make sure to add events and "invite" members to them.  You can send mass Facebook messages (emails) to your members and even import a separate RSS feed (like website updates).  If used correctly, your Facebook page will become a social media hub for your organization where information can spread out organically to your Fan Page friends and their friends.  

How to make your computer run faster part 2, clear out the baggage!

Your computer is like a train.  The more programs your have running, the more energy and effort it takes to get it started.  In part 1 of our series, I showed you how to clear up your RAM by closing programs you don't need to be running.

Sometimes there are programs running at startup that you don't even need at all.  These programs run in the background every time you boot your computer sucking your precious RAM dry.  A good indication if a program is running in the background can be found in your system tray.  The system tray can be found on most Windows computers in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.  It looks something like this:

This screenshot is from Windows 7, but XP and Vista are similar.  Each one of these icons represents a program running in the background.  You can see that my Dropbox program is running in the background signified by the little blue box.  Most of these System Tray programs run on a light set of resources, but what happens when you have programs running that you don't want running or that you're not sure about?  Uninstall them!

You can substantially speed up your computer simply by removing programs you don't use.  To uninstall your programs on Windows XP, go to your control panel and click the add/remove programs icon.  On Windows 7, just click the start button and type "uninstall" in the search box and select "Uninstall a Program" from the results.  You will see a window similar to this one:

Find whatever programs you never use or want to uninstall and remove them here.  You can do this by right-clicking the program and selecting "Uninstall" (Windows 7) or click on the program you want to remove and select the "remove" button (XP).

If you're not sure if you need a program, search Google for the program name and see if it's something you want to keep around and use.

If you are having a hard time removing a pesky program, I suggest using a program called Revo Uninstaller.  This program will help you delete programs and program data that the built in Windows uninstaller can't get rid of.  There is a free version (which I use) and a paid Pro Version as well.

The first step to lightening your load of programs is to uninstall the obvious programs you don't want on your computer.  Most computers and laptops come with some core programs that you will want to keep around such as programs related to your graphics drivers (like NVIDIA) or sound drivers.  There will be Windows updates listed sometimes that you don't want to get rid of, and you'll also want to keep around plugins like Adobe Flash Player, some PDF viewers, and Java.  Just remember not to go hog wild in your zeal to rid your computer of program baddies.  

A short list of programs (crapware) that I often uninstall from friend's computers are:

• Toolbars (such as Ask.com, Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.)
• RealPlayer
• MSN Messenger (if you don't use it)
• Microsoft Works (if you have a full version of Microsoft Word or other word processor)
• Game demos that ship with new computers
• Trial versions of software
• Customer support/tutorials and updater for some vendor hardware if they will not be used (HP, Dell, Gateway) 
• ISPs (Earthlink, AOL, NetZero) - if you don't need them (most people don't)

That's all for today.  Next time, I'll show you how to keep your remaining programs from all trying to load at startup slowing your booting experience to a screeching halt.