Tame Your Technology - Computer Repair Zone

Apple’s Ipod Touch - the Iphone without the phone - is an uber-cool gadget for music fans and internet lovers (it still has wifi access like the phone!).

Now you can win one by taking part in a new competition that is running for the next few days over at the Extra Income Blog - it’s super-simple to enter and you can get multiple entries by doing a few basic things. Click the link above to find out more…

Popularity: 27% [?]

For those of us (including me!) who don’t yet have an iphone, here’s a great opportunity to win one.

Avon Blake is giving one away at this blog this month and to enter all you have to do is to link to this blog from your to stand a chance of winning.

Even if you don’t have a blog, Avon’s articles are well worth a look. He writes some juicy stuff that is causing quite a bit of controversy…

Popularity: 22% [?]

RishabhSood.net launched on 26th of July this year as a place for it’s host of the same name to provide advice on subjects relating to blogging and SEO tactics.

Before we go any further therefore it’s important to take a look at whether Rishabh actually has any idea what he’s doing when it comes to traffic generation using the very techniques he teaches at his blog. And luckily he provides the perfect tool to do this. One feature Rishabh provides is a Pagerank Checker which will bring back a variety of details about any site inclduing the pagerank, incoming links and Alexa ranking.

Typing his own blog in, here is what we come across:

150+ links and an Alexa ranking of 154,000? Not bad at all for a blog just a few months old run by a 15 year old!

Infact, I was so impressed I decided to dig a little deeper so I ventured over to Alexa to get a more detailed view of Rishabh’s traffic to date.

What I found was that not only is his Alexa ranking so impressive, but at present it is even better. Alexa report that his ranking for the week of this review is an astonishing 60,000 which surely nobody can deny helps to prove Rishabh does indeed know exactly what he is talking about. Interestingly the Alexa graph itself shows this has even been as low as 50,000 in recent weeks. Impressive.

OK, so Rishabh knows what he is talking about, but what about his blog? Does it actually offer any value?

Well the first thing one notices is the theme used which, whilst I have to admit isn’t to my own taste, is certainly unique and helps to “brand” the blog well with it’s eye-catching choice of colors. The addition of the free tools at the top of the page also make them clear and easily accessed.

We mentioned the Pagerank Checker tool earlier but there is also another free tool worth mentioning here - a do-follow blog tool. This tool lists an impressive number of blogs that use do-follow links in their comments field meaning that each one is a potential source of Google juice and therefore higher pagerank and Google rankings.

Rishabh’s blog is worth a visit for that tool alone but he has also managed to put out some useful content too. Articles which particularly caught my eye were:

10 Ways To Build Backlinks For Your Website
5 SEO Mistakes Which Should Be Avoided
How To Check For No-Follow And Do-Follow Blogs

Whilst RishabhSood.net is still in it’s infancy the evidence suggests that not only does it’s author know what he is talking about but that this will grow into a popular blog well worth an RSS subscription. Why not take a look today.

Popularity: 36% [?]

Over time personal computers tend to slow down - particularly so with those running on Windows. I have heard stories of computers getting so slow that the owner just eventually gave up and bought a new computer instead.

But there are things you can do to speed up your computer.

There are a number of reasons why computers start to run slowly. Some of the most common are viruses and spyware working in the background of your computer, files scattered around your computer hard drive so your machine has to work harder to link them all together, and errors which gently build up on your hard drive.

There is a huge market of companies who make considerable profits sorting these issues out each year but instead I want to tell you about 3 free options that will help you do all of the above. I have been personally testing them for some time now and am really liking what I see so now I want to take a moment to show what I hope will be a few really helpful tips.

Antivirus

Personally I use Norton antivirus and swear by it but Norton *will* cost you some money. I pay for a multi-user license so I can have it installed on my 3 computers and have protection no matter which one I’m on.

However many people swear by AVG which is free. Personally I would only trust a tiny handful of brands as being truly useful. Plenty of people have old versions of antivirus or some other free application but its vital your antivirus is updated constantly. With new viruses being created daily, an antivirus program that doesn’t update online each time you log onto the Internet is probably failing to recognise some viruses and this can be dangerous.

Defragmenting

We download programs, delete files, uninstall software and so on. Over time this turns into a jumble of files and empty spaces on our hard drive and defragmenting hopes ot get rid of this fragmentation. This should therefore seepd up your computer.

Windows itself comes with a defragmentation application so you actually probably already have one right now. The problem is how slow it is. I have over 200,000 files on my main PC and a full defrag takes pretty much a whole night on my PC. That’s too slow for my liking.

However I recently discovered a really nifty tool called Smart Defrag that works cleverly when you’re not using your computer. So if you nip off to the loo, or watch TV, or even to check something in a book, the defrag software realises and jumps into action. As soon as you start using your computer again it goes into sleep mode.

In this way every time your computer is idle it defragments itself a little more, and as soon as you start using it, it goes into sleep mode. So you get the benefits of constant defragmenting (which means you don’t have to remember to do it!) but your PC doesn’t slow down while it’s working. What a great idea!

Registry Problems

There are loads of paid applications when it comes to sorting out registry problems but I have found a free one that works great. Called Advanced WindowsCare V2 this application will look at everything that goes on “under the hood” with your computer and then bring up a list of suggestions about what needs speeding up, improving or fixing. You select what you’d like it to do and it goes for it. I noticed a significant increase in speed personally when I used it and would strongly recommend it to you.

Popularity: 28% [?]

A smart phone is a mobile or cell phone that offers a range of additional features to those found on a standard cell phone. In short, they tend to offer personal digital assistant (PDA) functionality such as a calender and the ability to synchronize it with a calendar on your office computer.

In short, a smart phone can be seen as a tiny computer in your pocket.

That functionaility of most use to busy professionals and can help you manage and organize a hectic lifestyle.

We’ve mentioned the calendar function but did you also know that on many such smart phones you can actually receive reminders about upcoming events? Mine is programmed each day to flash up a list of not only what I have booked for the day but also what is planned for exactly a weeks time so that I have time to buy bithday cards, finish off projects and prepare for meetings with no nasty surprises.

My smart phone also allows me to access my emails and the Internet from literally anywhere I can get a signal so whilst whilst on such a small device I’d rather use a proper computer given the choice, I have still had all sorts of situations where having these features in my pocket has been beneficial and saved me considerable time and inconvenience.

If you are using certain smartphones, most notably those running Windows Mobile, you can view, create or edit Microsoft office files. In this way I can fill in a speadsheet, create a letter or practise my Powerpoint presentation while on the go, and a quick synchromization with my PC each evening ensures all new documents are copied to my office computer.

Lastly I find the simple functionality of the notebook feature incredibly handy to jot down ideas when I am out. Having a single place to store all of these helps to keep me organized, and I always have the information to hand if I come up with another idea.

In short, if you want the functionality of a small computer in your pocket then a smart phone might just be the device for you.

Popularity: 24% [?]