GEEKTEKSReal Geeks Use Free Software
You heard me right. Real geeks use free software. Why? Because most of it (and I do mean most) is written better than the commercial paid for stuff. “How can this be true?”, you asked. Well, to put it simply, much of the free software that is out there and available today is open source software. “Well, what is open source software?”, you then asked. Open source software, defined in layman’s terms, is basically just software that is written by an organization, group, or an individual who generously and sometimes, altruistically, chooses to reveal the code to the software. In other words, the code is not hidden and therefore it can be hacked, manipulated, and improved regularly. See, hacking is not always bad. In fact, more often than not, hacking is a good thing. Imagine if every time you wanted to make an improvement on your home or car, you could only do this by calling a corporately licensed repairman who charged you an arm and a leg just to service your request. And the reason you had to do this is because you didn’t have the ability to do it. And the reason you didn’t have the ability, is because you didn’t have the knowledge. And the reason you didn’t have the knowledge is because the knowledge was never given to you and could not be found at any bookstore, library, or on the Internet. And so you were held hostage to your own ignorance. That is much the same way that Microsoft and other licensed software providers operate today. And so those who want to make changes and improvements to any of Microsoft’s software for the benefits of all people, cannot do so because Microsoft refuses to reveal their code. They call it a trade secret. I call it a conspiracy. Knowledge should always remain free.
Anywho, enough ranting. Open source software, because it is continually being hacked and improved by a community of users, usually remains the premium software. It is often more stable, less prone to bugs (or if bugs do exist, they are patched very rapidly) , more secure, and more user friendly just for starts. The downside of open source software, is that there is not usually a place that you can go for immediate support, not that the places you currently go for support for commercial software are worth the cost of buying the software anyways. This is usually the drawback. But then again, this is why you have us. GeekTeks continues to remain separate in their resolve to help the average person with their software issues. While other computer repair service providers (cough-like the GeekSquad-cough) tend to push their clients away if they refuse to buy their commercial pushed software in favor of other software, GeekTeks does not. We want to help the average consumer save money on software. We believe by doing this, maybe, just maybe, you might spend a little bit more on our very inexpensive services (comparatively speaking).
Look at it this way. You buy a computer at (God forbid) Best Buy. You find a really great deal. You’re stoked. But as they ring you up, they start scaring you about all of the evil software that is going to get you if you don’t buy and have them install the security software that they are currently pushing. It is then that you realize you do need security software. But if you buy their commercial pushed product, your great deal is not so great anymore is it? But you figure, you’re going to need it anyways so you might as well go ahead and buy it. Now hold on a second. Stop and think. Do you know that there is plenty of free virus and spyware protection available. There are free firewalls and spam filters. There are free parental controls and phishing filters. So all that stuff that Best Buy was going to charge you to buy and install is really not necessary. In fact, I can almost guarantee that the money you would have spent on their pushed commercial products, would be double or even triple the cost it would be to call us and have us install all of our known free security software at our current going rate for remote support. So by paying for our services to install free open source software that we know of, you are actually saving yourself not only money but you are getting a better software product for all of the reasons mentioned above and then some.
So then why doesn’t the GeekSquad take this approach? That one is easy to answer as well. GeekSquad get’s huge kickbacks from selling their products. Software products are no different. You see, Best Buy is in the business of selling products, not services. Services are just a side item for them and not where their real money is made. Their real money is made in selling products. And thus, that is what their focus is. Along with their products, they will offer their services. Just because they’d rather not have that business go elsewhere and additional income will be generated. GeekTeks, on the other had, focuses 100% on services offered to our customers. We have no ties with large companies and therefore our recommendations are not polluted with alterior motives. Our focus remains exclusively on satisfactory service to our customers. And to help us keep this focus, we often recommend free and/or open source software. That is why I say, “REAL GEEKS USE FREE SOFTWARE”. There is no hidden agenda here. We want to meet your service requests and needs head on by providing you, our customer, with %100 service and price satisfaction.
There is lots of information available on the web in regards to open source software. CNET put together a quick video on the topic.
I’d encourage you to watch it here:
Click here or on the video thumbnail.
And here are a few links to web sites which will direct you to the best open source software available for use today.:
http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/top-100-of-the-best-useful-opensource-applications/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_software_packages
http://www.digitaldarknet.net/thelist/index.php
http://mashable.com/2007/09/23/open-source/
http://www.opensourcewindows.org/
Popularity: 20% [?]
Tags: , adobe photoshop, best free software, best free software list, best open source software, best open source software list, free software, geeksquad, geekteks, microsoft excel, microsoft office, microsoft powerpoint, microsoft word, open source software, real geeks
. 08 Jul 08 | Software | Comments (0)
Videobox - Lightbox for Videos
As I stated in my previous post, I am fairly new to this whole web blog / web designing thing. Out of necessity for our company’s business success, I have had to learn how to do some basic web designing and blog creation. While I have been learning, I have also been having a lot of fun trying new plugins and new code on our site and blog. I came across many sites that were using lightbox for pictures. This is not that new or exciting because it seems like almost every blog is using some kind of variant plugin which seems to have spun off the original lightbox. But (excuse me if I am wrong) it didn’t seem like many people were using lightbox to display their videos. In fact, I had a hard time locating the videobox plugin at all. It wasn’t in any of the common wordpress repositories, at least that I could find when I searched. When I finally did locate this great plugin, I found it on a site hosted somewhere in South America and I had to use Google to translate the page so that I could get some basic instructions on how to use the plugin. And I found that after all this, the instructions given were incorrect. Therefore, I had to look into the code of the plugin to figure out what the parameters for using this plugin should be. And since I am not a coder and I know many wordpress bloggers are also not coders, I thought my success and instructions for installing and using this great plugin might be helpful to those out there also attempting to do the same thing with their blog. But first, let me show you what the plugin does and explain the reasons as to why you might want to install the plugin on your blog or site.
Example:
Click here to demo.
As you can see, there are several reasons why this plugin might be useful for displaying videos on your blog or site; but allow me to enumerate just a few:
- It is neat. It seems like embedded video often appears to look sloppy when displayed on most blogs. With “videobox”, the appearance is much neater for a few reasons:
- Size can be adjusted. The size of the video thumbnail can be enlarged or shrunk to the size of your choosing. This is a very beneficial aspect, especially for those blogs that display a large amount of video content.
- Text can be wrapped around the thumbnail. Unlike embedded video, with videobox your text can be wrapped around the thumbnail image but I did not demonstrate that capability in this example. This would help to save even more valuable space.
- You can choose any image thumbnail to most accurately demonstrate what your video will be about. With most embedded video you are not allowed to specify what the thumbnail picture will be.
- It’s just plain cool. Of course, this second point, is just a matter of opinion. But if you agree, let me now briefly explain how to install it.
Here’s how to install the Videobox plugin:
- Download and unzip the plugin. Install the folder contents to your wordpress plugin directory.
- Activate the plugin.
- To use, simply add rel=”videobox” to the anchor tag of your video clip thumbnail. Within the rel=”videobox” tag you can add dimensions to your video’s size if you want. In my video example above, I made the video size to be 600×450. Notice the code example below. I simply edited the tag to be rel=”videobox 600 450″. So here is how my code looked for the above video example:
<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8″ rel=”vidbox 600 450″ title=”Ron Paul, a real life American patriot.”><img src=”http://img.youtube.com/vi/IWfIhFhelm8/2.jpg” />Click here to demo.</a>
That’s it. Yes it really is that easy! And trust me, I am very new to blogging (less than 10 post old) and so if I can do it, truly anybody can.
As always, if you found this blog article helpful or useful in any way, please digg or social bookmark it, or both.
-Kyle
Popularity: 30% [?]
Tags: Ajax, Lightbox, Lightbox for videos, Video, videobox, videobox wordpress, videobox wordpress plugin, Videos
. 25 Jan 08 | Web Design | Comment (1)
Bad Behavior 2.0.11 Wordpress Plugin Blocking Digg Submission
OK. I am fairly new (less than a dozen posts old) at this whole Wordpress blogging thing. So when I run into problems, sometimes I am just not quite sure whether I am the problem or the software I am working with. Almost always it ends up being the latter for which I am glad since this helps to support the fact that maybe I am somewhat capable of helping to manage and run a nationwide computer repair company. Anyways, let’s get to the chase here. I know social submission is important to promoting your website or blog. So before I started this blog, I tried to include some important wordpress plugins prior to publicizing some of my articles. My mistake was really to add all of my plugins at the same time. Do not do this! Because of this mistake I was not easily able to narrow down what was causing the problem I was having when I attempted to submit my articles to Digg. I kept on getting, “This link does not appear to be a working link. Please check the URL and try again.” So yesterday, I wasted a few hours racking my feeble brain and trying to figure out which one of the twenty thousand plugins I had installed could be causing the problem. I knew it couldn’t be:
- My links: I had checked them all and they were fine.
- My WWW- Redirect plugin - I though maybe Digg didn’t like the submission of redirect links. They don’t. But this was not the problem. After deactivating this plugin the problem still existed.
- Couldn’t be my Digg account. I just recently signed up and barely have any activity on the account. I could log in and digg other stories.
It must be something else. And that is when I had the epiphany. Could it be one of my spam prevention plugins? Long story short, turns out that is exactly what it was. Bad Behaviour (I have v. 2.0.11) was preventing me from submitting my articles to Digg. Problem is that I am so new to Wordpress, blogging, PHP code, plugins, etc. that I did not think I would be able to fix it. And, as of the writing of this article, I really couldn’t find any information on how to fix the problem. So why not use my new blog to help others who might be having the exact same problem. And that is exactly why I have written this article.
How to fix Bad Behavior 2.0.11 from blocking your diggs:
|
| 3. Find the following code, “$bb2_whitelist_ip_ranges = array(” and add 64.191.203.34 to next line of whitelisted ip’s. This is Digg’s ip and it will unblock Digg from Bad Behavior and allow you to now make Digg submissions without those annoying errors:  Click on the picture for the clearer full size picture. |
| Now if you found this blog article helpful or useful in any way, please digg it. I am trying to figure out what kind of information is going to drive traffic to this blog.Thank you.-Kyle |
Popularity: 32% [?]
Tags: bad behavior, can't digg, cannot digg, digg, error, errors, plugin, problem digging, problems digging, submission, submit, This link does not appear to be a working link, wordpress
. 14 Dec 07 | Web Design | Comments (0)
Blue Screen of Death Mayhem
Ahhh, the notorious blue screen of death. Conjures up memories of failed project deadlines doesn’t it? Blue screen errors always seem to happen at the most inopportune times. It’s kind of like the modern day, “the dog ate my homework” excuse. Only the dog, in this case, is Microsoft and their unstable operating systems. And this time, it’s the truth. Even good ‘ole Bill Gates himself was not immune to the random and occasional blue screen of death. Watch the following video for an example; you will see that, at one of his most important presentations, Billy boy is assaulted by his now famous, or shall we say “infamous”, blue screen of death. This is pretty funny.
Now if you do a google picture search for “blue screen” and here are a few of the results you might come up with:
Bill Gates flaunting his blue screen invention.
Here some idiot tattoos the BSOD error message on his arm. Probably Bill Gates …lol. Just joking Bill. I mean about the idiot part.
There is wallpaper of the blue screen of death. Click here to download a 1024×768 version with blinking cursor. This would make for a very funny prank with one of your “Dwight Shrute-like” office co-workers. All you have to do is hide the desktop icons and task bar and you’re in business. Or you can get a blue screen of death screensaver here.
Heck, there are even t-shirts made with the blue screen of death error printed on them:
Like it or not the blue screen of death has become a part of our computing culture. Something, unfortunately, most of us have gotten used to. At Geek Teks the BSOD error has become one of the more common issues that people call us about.
So what causes the blue screen to occur and how can we avoid it?
What a popular question! I am glad you asked.
A blue screen of death error can occur on your computer because of several reasons but usually it has to do with hardware failures or driver issues.
- Hardware issues are the most common causes for blue screen errors. Many times the power supply is starting to fail. Sometimes it is the fault of memory beginning to go. Sometimes the culprit is the motherboard or hard drive. A full hardware diagnostics should really be run on the machine in order that the issue can be pinpointed. If you have a PCI diagnostics card, use it. Run memtest against your RAM. Use a manufacturer specific hard drive diagnostic utility against your hard drive to check for errors. Open up your machine to look for blown capacitators on the mobo. Test the power supply with a good power supply tester. These are all things that should be done on a regular basis anyways. So now that Mr. blue screen has forced you into action, you may as well do them yourself or call Geek Teks. We’ll send a technician out to your site right away to do a diagnosis for you and pinpoint the issue.
- If a complete hardware diagnosis is completed with no known failures, the next probable issue might revolve around driver issues. To check, first try first to boot into ‘Safe Mode’ by tapping the F8 key at startup. If the boot process completes and you are able to see the desktop in safe mode, then you probably have some sort of driver issue. Try ’start’>’run’ and then type in ‘msconfig’. When the dialog is displayed, go to the ’startup’ tab. Eliminate everything from startup but your virus and spyware protection. Try restarting in normal mode again. Sometimes certain software, which starts up with your computer, run specific drivers needed for that software to operate. If your computer boots up in normal mode, you know that the culprit was a piece of installed software running at startup. It is best to eliminate every application not necessary at startup and then to go from there, adding applications back to startup on a one by one basis until the culprit is found, if it can be found this way. If it fails, look closely at your blue screen error again. It might tell you which driver is the cause of your problems. Sometimes there are drivers running on your system, started by a system service, that cannot simply be removed by un-checking startup applications in the msconfig dialog. On occasion, video drivers go bad. You would need to boot up into ‘Safe Mode’ with networking to resolve this one. Then you would download the updated driver needed for your specific video card.
This blue screen indicates a problem with the spcmdcon.sys file. If it’s the same file every time, then that suggests a software or driver issue. Google the file in question. Figuring out what that file does, may lead you to the driver in question. If not the software, then it may indicate a problem with the hardware that driver controls.
- Sometimes, the BSOD error occurs quite simply because you have yourself a buggy operating system. To solve the this, either try to stay on top of your windows updates (sometimes solves the problem) or switch to another more stable operating system.
Windows Vista Blue Screens
Well, if I am going to be honest and cover all bases for blue screen of death occurances on your Windows machine, then I have to throw this one in as well. It only applies to Windows Vista machines. If your Windows Vista machine blue screens, and you know it is not any of the above, then it just might be that your Vista operating system is blue screening because it suspects you are a digital thieve, have broken the DRM schema, and have pirated the content you are now attempting to play on your windows or windows connected machine. What a judgemental operating system huh? There is no innocent until proven guilty concept here. Yes, thanks to Hollywood, your PC is now your policeman as well. Watch this video for a more thorough introduction on this topic:
If all else fails, either buy a new system or call the Geek Teks at 877.433.5835. We’ll solve the problem for you quickly and for a reasonable price.
- Kyle
Popularity: 100% [?]
Tags: Blue Screen, blue screen error, blue screen errors, Blue Screen of Death, blue screen of death error, blue screen of death errors, BSOD, BSOD error, BSOD errors, error message, error messages, windows error message, windows error messages, windows vista blue screen, windows vista bsod, windows vista digital rights management, windows vista drm, windows xp error, windows xp error message, windows xp error messages, windows xp errors
. 12 Dec 07 | Tips | Comments (0)
Free Virus Removal and Free Spyware Removal Tools - Remove Viruses and Spyware for free
One of our most popular services requested is for virus and spyware removal. So why in the heck are we, a computer repair company that makes money from performing these services, showing you how you can remove viruses and spyware from your computer for free?
- Well, number one, we’re continually bragging about our honest reputation and transparency as a company. So, here’s proof.
- Number two, we’d rather perform some other service for you instead. Removing viruses and spyware from your computer is our least favorite service request. And, although we can perform any virus and spyware removal on any computer without any problems, if we can get you to remove viruses and spyware from your computer on your own and then learn how to protect your computer from getting viruses and spyware in the future, we’re hoping that you’ll spend your money on us for other services, much more enjoyable services for us to perform like configuring your wireless router, testing the security on your network, or performing a backup of your data.
Believe it or not, there are a number of free software tools available for use in protecting your system. My favorite is AVG for virus protection. I personally have been using AVG on my computer for over 8 years now. It is often what our company recommends for installation on your home computer. But JimmyR, one of my favorite ‘YouTubers’, also gives a good video commentary on how to protect your computer from viruses and spyware. Watch this:
-Kyle
Popularity: 32% [?]
Tags: free spyware protection, free virus protection, free_software_tools, protecting_your_system, spyware protection, spyware removal, virus removal, virus_protection
. 15 Nov 07 | Tips | Comments (0)
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- Real Geeks Use Free Software
- Videobox - Lightbox for Videos
- Bad Behavior 2.0.11 Wordpress Plugin Blocking Digg Submission
- Blue Screen of Death Mayhem
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