Riding Shotgun with Adam

Hey folks, just checking in to let everyone know that I am still around. I don't come around as much any more because I have been taking a break from my HelpMeRick.com duties to spend time with my family and work on a few other projects behind the scenes.

I am very proud of one such project, a website called ChanisProgress.org.

Firefox 3.0 is now available for full download for the masses.

It is reported to be the fastest version of firefox yet, and possibly one of the fastest browsers period.

We have tested it for a while and it appears to be ready for use. Be careful if you run a lot of extensions, you will want to research and make sure that your extensions are compatible with 3.0.

There are several new features to Firefox 3.0 which we will write about later and talk about on the show.

Extortionware? What is extortionware.

I have seen at least 10 computers in the past two weeks that have recently been infected with extortionware - viruses and spyware that infect your system by pretending to be an antivirus or other security program.

With names like Windows Antivirus, WinAntivirus, XP Antivirus 20008, etc. these programs appear to look and feel official. However, they are some of the worst virus or virus-like programs I have ever dealt with.

These viruses often come onto a computer via a pop-up advertisement that says looks like a Windows security or antivirus warning that reads something like, "Your computer is infected with one or more viruses and spyware programs. Click here to run a full scan."

This just in...

 AVG has not discontinued its free version of AVG. The new AVG 8.0 can be downloaded from their website or from download.com.

Beginning today, we have posted a free video that demonstrates how to get the free version of AVG. So, before you buy the version that they are trying to sell you, give this version a shot. It is the version they don't want you to know about.

In the computer world, there are hot rodders - people who will tweak their computers to get every last bit of horse power out of their systems.

Just as with automobiles, techniques used by hot rodders were once necessary in the early days when horse power was hard to come by.

Today, most computers come with all the horsepower most people need. Important tasks like defragmenting the hard drive, running scan disk and deleting cookies no longer do anything spectacular to the performance of the average computer.

Cookies are harmless - even the shady ones. Defragging does little on a 250 gig hard drive and scandisk is take care of by utility features in Windows that run every time you boot up or shut down.

Theory and Practice of Photography

Aperture:

Aperture is the setting of the iris of the camera lens. Just as your pupils in your eyes expand and contract to let in more or less light, you can do the same with your camera by setting the Aperture.

The Aperture measurement is called F-stop. The higher the F-stop number, the smaller the iris is set in your camera.

The trade-off: Each concept of photography seems to have a trade-off that prevents you from wanting to use it all the time.

I made an early trip to Sam's Club today and picked up three Wii Fits to resell on eBay. It has been month's since there has been an item worth scalping on eBay. It will be interesting to see whether or not I can actually make a profit or just break even.

eBay raised their rates by about two percent earlier this year. At the moment the $90 Wii Fit device is selling for around $150 on eBay even though they are fairly easy to find on store shelves. Shelves are supposed to be dry of them by next week.

Nintendo has already said that supply will be limited for a while. So far the reviews are mixed as far as using the device as a full exercise program, but everyone seems to agree that the Fit is well made and works as intended.

I have faced this problem several times now. I have read every post on the Internet and there are no fixes.

The Intel 85865g integrated graphics chip does not support wide screen resolutions. There is no update to the drivers, there is not working hack and there is no hope.

The only solution is to either buy a standard (square) monitor or a different graphics card. Any graphics card on the shelf will handle widescreen resolutions.

Before you post questions and comments on possible fixes, I repeat, I have tried everything and read everything. There is no fix for this problem.

Perhaps someone will find a testimonial of someone who found a fix or a workaround. I have tried it and it doesn't work.

Poisson rouge means red fish in French. Poissonrouge.com is one of the greatest web sites for kids that I have ever been to. Chances are it will keep about 75 percent of adults entertained for an hour or two as well. The site is simple, visit and click on anything to discover new areas. The site will seem endless as you or your children click through feature after feature. No keyboard skills are required and the site is so well designed that it will hardly seem like you are on a website at all.

Another great web site is Hero Machine. This one may at first seem like it is just for boys, but my 9-year-old daughter has spent her share of hours on it as well.

If you are looking for the podcast for our May 8 show, there isn't one. Adam forgot to hit record. Thanks to those who joined us live. It was a great show.