Convenience, and pursuit thereof, will ultimately kill us all.  Well, either that or incessant safety measures.

But online purchases are more than just convenient, they will also save you money when properly executed.  Problem is, there’s always a catch. Within any relatively new market there are the naive newbies and the bottom-feeding exploiters effortlessly extricating the hard-earned cash from their doughy fingertips.  In reality, both have co-existed throughout history and this is simply, bluntly a different medium.

With that in mind, how do you buy stuff online and not get ripped off?

FACTS, UNSETTLING AND OTHERWISE

The Big Guys

Target, Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, etc., are large, well-known corporations with corporate offices located somewhere, so when buying from one of those guys, chances are you’ll get what you paid f or with some degree of certainty and some kind of warranty attached.  These guys have been at it so long and are so big that their brand of deception is 5 moves ahead of what most of us think is sly.

The thing to watch out for with them (not necessarily the ones listed above)  is indirect.  Newsletters, product alerts and other sneaky spammies like the cookies they dropped on your machine whilst you were transacting with them, special offers or check boxes that sign you up for stuff you never wanted and could get billed for later.

Nobody reads the TOS (Terms of Service) agreements, I mean c’mon, those things are purposely dry, boring and insufferably long specifically for that reason.  But, those aren’t the problem.  I’m telling you to watch out for special discount offers and anything else that either requires leaving the page you’re currently on to confirm, or 3rd party software in sneaky check boxes you miss as you excitedly click-through the prompts.  PAY ATTENTION.

And for goodness sake, clean your cookies regularly (the cookies those sites dropped onto your machine are transmitting your web surfing history data as we speak, no lie).  For more info on the discount scam checkout Clark Howard’s report.

The Wild West

Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, and a growing number of sites just like ‘em present a whole different set of potentially hazardous circumstances.  First, there are no guarantees.  I don’t care what the text says, the truth is, you don’t really know where they are, who they are or how far they will go to reach into your wallet or purse. You don’t know whether they are on the up-and-up, scammers or in some cases even worse.

That being said, I’ve probably made hundreds of purchases online and have NEVER been disappointed.  Below are a few simple rules to follow:

eBay & Amazon

The sellers are you and me and there is very little you can do in the way of recourse should you experience mild or even extreme dissatisfaction with the purchase.  The fate of your investment rests solely on the seller. Preemptive strategy is mandatory.

• Research the item – Google new and used price estimates and model numbers. Match your info with the item that’s listed and any pictures that may be available.
• Don’t buy large ticket items that are out of driving range – It’s a lot like gambling, so if the item is worth more than you care to lose, make sure you can drive to where the item is supposed to be located.
• Don’t buy anything from a different country – Look, if it’s a $5 pair of headphones and the seller has made hundreds of sales, big deal, go for it. But there are a lot of fakes out there, and I’m not pointing any fingers but lots of them come from China and Japan.
• Check the sellers history -  How many sales have they made? What’s their rating? Read comments from previous customers.
• Try to communicate with the seller -  Ask a specific question about the item. If they don’t get back to you in a reasonable amount of time, or they give some funky answer, well…that’s a red flag.

Craigslist

Craigslist is one of my favorites. They’ve kept the site simple and the ads are either free or very affordable.  However, in that the ads are free and there is virtually no accountability nor qualitative measures taken to verify a sellers veracity or even identity, the risks here are greater.

Actual verbal conversations with sellers here are highly recommended.

Again, ask specific questions about the item.

Be very, very careful with items that cost beyond several hundred dollars.  Look, you’ve got a bunch of cash in your pocket and you’re meeting up with a total stranger.

As a Craigslist seller, don’t bring the buyer to your actual residence.  Arrange to meet them in a familiar public place, preferably with plenty of people around and in the daylight.

As a seller, don’t take checks and look carefully at the bills you’re getting.  Counterfeiting does still exist, here’s an article about what to look out for.

Do some cyberstalking.  There’s nothing wrong with Googling a name or email address to see if you can find out who you might be dealing with.

White Hats

There are some great “safe” sites to purchase from as well.  For anything computer/tech related – Newegg.com and Microcenter are two of my favorites.  Both have detailed information about specs and Newegg’s customers regularly leave comments about the items.

Generally, a business that has a physical, traceable address is a good sign and using Google Street View you can even see what the building looks like in many cases.

Again, cyberstalking comes in handy here, google the name of the business and add, “scam” or “rip-off” or something similar to the search term and see what you come up with.

Stay local when possible.  Obviously companies that are local are preferable geographically speaking, but oft times especially with larger companies, items are warehoused in different locations.  However, you can still drive to the store or business should issues arise.

THE GOOD NEWS

Purchasing online will save you in time, money or both.  The overhead for online stores is significantly less and in most cases the savings are passed on to you.  Security encryption is improving, but you don’t have to use your bank account or credit card if that freaks you out.

Paypal ( a subsidiary of eBay) has been a trusted online payment option since 2000.  You do link a credit card or bank account with a Paypal account, however when purchasing an item, the seller has no access to your personal accounts.  They only see the Paypal account.

Green Dot Prepaid Cards - Relatively new, you can buy or add cash to a Green Dot prepaid card and use it for purchases and it’s like paying cash online.  No personal information whatsoever.  A great option for those concerned about exposing personal data on the internet.

Overall, with the proper precautions in place, purchasing online is a great way to buy.  No pressure from salespeople, no driving and tons of information and reviews.

Just be smart about it and use some common sense.

How to Completely Recover Documents, Pictures and More Off Your Failing Hard Drive or SmartCard

Nearly every computer user has experienced a crash at one time or another.  Most times your machine fires right back up, but sometimes not.  So what do you do about all your pictures, music, videos and miscellaneous documents you’ve gathered over the years?  Here are a few ways to save your precious data.

(BTW: this wouldn’t be necessary if you regularly backed up your files onto an external hard drive or or burned them onto DVD’s, but you probably haven’t done that).

Whoops! I Deleted Everything, Right?

If you’re a CSI, Law & Order or NCIS fan you’ve seen that data can be retrieved from a hard drive, even if it’s been deleted.  That’s possible because even though you delete a file, it doesn’t actually go away.  Your computer simply moves the file to an area of the drive where it can be overwritten and tells the OS (Operating System) that that space is now available.

But the TV Detective IT Squad has special tools to extract the damning digital evidence, right?  Sure, but so do you and it’s free.  Before I go there, what do you do when your hard drive completely dies and your computer won’t fire up?  Honestly, most of the time it’s just a corrupted system file or portion of your boot sector which can be corrected by running the chkdsk command in a DOS command prompt, but that’s for another tutorial.

The most cost effective way to retrieve your data and even repair the drive is to open up the case, remove the hard drive and plug it into a  another working computer as a slave drive.

A hard drive is a peripheral component and is not OS exclusive, however, in order to retrieve data from a Windows machine, you’ll need to hook the drive up to another Windows computer.

Remove the Failing Drive

1. Power down the computer and unplug the AC from the back.
2. Remove the side of the computer case.
3. Locate the Hard drive and unplug the Power and Data cables from the back of the drive. (Newer computers use SATA connectors, but yours may have the PATA or Parallel connector, there are only two kinds so it’s one or the other)
4. Unscrew or detach the drive from the chassis or case (check your manual for instructions) and remove the drive.

(The power cable pictured is a Moler cable, yours may be the SATA power connector, again there’s only two choices so it’s one or the other)

Most newer computer motherboards have both PATA and SATA connectors, check your hard drive connection and the motherboard connections of the computer you want to use to make sure.

Next, be sure you have the proper cables.  For the SATA drive you can pull the one from your computer and take it with you.  If you have a PATA or Parallel connection you’ll need a PATA ribbon with three connectors like below:

The only possible remaining issue could be the jumper pin settings on the PATA hard drive (SATA drives are preset).  The most common jumper setting is CABLE SELECT (CS).  Jumper settings on both drives should be set to CS.  Otherwise, the drive you’re plugging into should be set to Master and your drive to Slave.

(Check the hard drive manufacturers website for the correct jumper settings for each drive, the image below is an example specifically for this article)

As above, power down, unplug and open up the computer you’re going to hook your drive to, plug in the appropriate cables, put everything back together and fire it up.  There’s no need to replace the side of the computer you’re using, unless it makes the other computer owner feel better, than by all means.

Failing hard drives may have corrupted system files or may not have enough juice to fire up the entire computer, but even slightly damaged drives will register with the other machine, and that’s when you can navigate to the folders where all your stuff resides.

Your drive will show up as E: or F:, depending on that computers set up, it could be anything except C: or D: (in most cases).

Once you find your drive go to - E: (whatever drive letter it is)>Documents and Settings>Owner (or whatever your user name is)>My Documents.  That is the default location for personal data storage, although you may have files on your desktop or other folders you created as well.

Once you have that figured out, start moving your data over.  You can use your friends hard drive, an external drive, a thumb drive or you can burn the files onto a DVD or BluRay disk.

What If…

If the drive registers but doesn’t allow access the drive may be damaged.  In that case, you’ve got a couple options.  The FREE option is to download and install PC Inspector – File Recovery.

PC Inspector is a FREE data recovery program that can not only pull data from a damaged drive, but it also has the ability to retrieve deleted files on your computer.  As mentioned above, when you delete a file it just gets moved to another area and is overwritten.  If the file was deleted recently or not much activity has taken place, there’s an excellent chance that you can completely restore the file.  PC Inspector – File Recovery is awesome.

PC Inspector also has a SmartCard Recovery program that performs the same function for the SmartCards used in digital cameras and other devices.  Digital cameras have been known to re-format a SmartCard for no reason at all, but when that happens you just need to download and install PC Inspector Smart Recovery.  Plug a card reader into your computer, or use the card reader bay, start Smart Recovery, navigate to the card and your pictures magically reappear.  Again an awesome program.

If All Else Fails

If that doesn’t work, there is one more option you can utilize that isn’t free, but it doesn’t cost hundreds either.  The absolute best data recovery, hard drive repair program is called SpinRite.

For a mere $89 (as of this writing) you can save data and repair hard drives over and over again.  I’ve used SpinRite on dozens of drives and have had 100% success in restoring them.  SpinRite will restore corrupted system files, boot sectors and it can even repair physically damaged drives.  Absolutely amazing.

Summary

If you’re cheap (or broke) like me, you may go through the steps above to retrieve your data.  If you’re not interested in cracking open your computer, than SpinRite is definitely the best way to go.   Please leave any questions in the comments section.

Good Luck!

A Quick And Easy Guide To Setting Up Your First Wordpress Blog

Wordpress is one of the preeminent platforms for building a blog or website.  Dynamic websites, those that allow users to interact and contribute without an Administrator/Web Developer having to re-write and re-upload each of the pages individually every time there’s a modification,  are the future.  Interactivity is one of the most popular aspects of the internet today, (think social media sites) and Wordpress was designed with dynamicism and interactivity at it’s core.  Wordpress also has become increasingly user friendly so that you don’t have to know how to write code in order to produce something really cool.  Not to mention that it’s open source so every piece of software I mention in this article is free.

Basic Prep

A website at it’s most basic level is a number of files on a computer called a server that has an internet address called a domain name.  The files are the pages of your website and the domain name is how people find it.  Before you start building your site, there a few things you need to do first.
Get organized – create a folder on your computer where you’ll keep all your website related files.  Make one for the wordpress files themselves, but then add others specifically for images, ideas, music, videos, or any other components that are independent of the wordpress file structure.

Supporting software

Here are the tools I recommend you use to get started (the title of each program links to their download location):

• Filezilla – Filezilla is an FTP client that substantially decreases the time involved with uploading, downloading and backing up the files for your website.  There’s a separate tutorial here that you may find useful.
• Notepad++ – Notepad++ is a simple text editor with lots of additional features that you will find useful.  If you’re a windows user, Notepad (standard) is one of your programs. Notepad++ makes things easier by color coding the different tags in your html, php and other web-related files.
• Photoshop, Picasa, Irfanview, iPhoto – Okay, Photoshop is far from being free, but Picasa,Irfanview and iPhoto (included with Macs) are and each have the ability to edit photos. There will be times when you’ll want to edit a photo to adjust the size or enhance it some way.

Lay the Groundwork

Choose a webhost and domain name:
Technically the only thing you’ll need to pay for is the domain name, which can be had for $6-$10 a year.  If you choose free hosting with Wordpress.com or others, you’ll save money, but there are limitations which you may not dig later on.  The requirements for Wordpress are the PHP scripting language environment and the ability to set up a MySQL database.  The recommended hosts for Wordpress are Blue Host, DreamHost, MediaTemple, GoDaddy, JustHost and Laughing Squid.  Check them each out for pricing and suitability for your specific needs.
Best practice for choosing a domain name is to pick something that identifies your brand or what the site is about in some way.  Ex: if you sell real estate in Costa Rica, create a name like costaricarealestate.com or real-estate-in-costa-rica.net, you get the idea.

In a Nutshell, What You’ll Do

1. Setup an account with a web host
2. Choose a domain name
3. Create a MySQL Database
4. Create a MySQL User and assign permissions
5. Download latest WP software
6. Modify wp-config.php file
7. Upload WP software to root directory
8. Install Wordpress
9. Have Fun

Using cpanel, which is a widely used UI (user interface) this video tutorial shows how to setup a MySQL Database.

Video Tutorial:

http://www.flatheadenterprises.com/streams/db-setup.flv

Using FileZilla and Notepad++ this video tutorial shows how to setup wordpress quickly and easily.

Video Tutorial:

http://www.flatheadenterprises.com/streams/wordpress-fast-and-easy.flv

Hope these were helpful.

peace

Filezilla is one of the best FTP programs available, and totally free.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

There’s no better compliment to a Wordpress (or any, for that matter) blog than FileZilla.  This primer will show how easy it is to transfer files from your computer to your website quickly and easily.

1. Download and Install FileZilla – (download)

FileZilla is available for Windows (2k – Windows 7), Linux and Mac (Requires OS X 10.5 or newer)

2. FileZilla Interface

The image below describes the functions of each window of the interface.  Transferring files is as easy as right-mouse clicking on the file and selecting “upload”.  Take a minute to review the image.

3. Configure FileZilla for your website

• Click on File>Site Manager
• Click on the “New Site” Button just below the “Select Entry” window.  A new entry will appear and be highlighted under “My Sites” in the “Select Entry” window.
• Rename the new entry to whatever you want (something close to the site name could work, but it’s up to you)
• In the top right of the Site Manager window are four tabs; General, Advanced, Transfer Settings and Charset.  General is the only tab you need, the default settings suffice 99.99% of the time.  (I’ve never had to adjust any of the other settings in the 9 years I’ve been using FileZilla)
• In the Host: textfield (see below) type in the domain name of your site without the http://www (make sure to include the .com|.net|etc)
• Servertype: should be set at FTP – File Transfer Protocol
• Set Logontype: to Normal
• User: is your FTP user name
• Password: is, well your FTP password

important – User names and passwords ARE case-sensitive and there can be NO spaces between letters or words.

That should be all you have to do.  Once those fields are filled in, you click on the “Connect” button and you should be in and ready to start transferring files.

4. Transferring Files

Basically, you’re moving files/folders (directories) from your computer (window 4 above) to your web server (window 5 above).  The left side of the FileZilla interface is your computer, and the right side is the web server or remote site.  You can do that by right-mouse clicking the files/folders(directories) and selecting “upload”.  You can control-click or shift-click a group of files/folders(directories) and right-mouse click or you can even click and drag files/f0lders(directories) from anywhere else into the remote site file window (window 5 above). Window 6 will show you the status of your transfers.

5. A little more about how it works

When you first connect via FileZilla, you could get confused by all the folders/directories on your remote site/web server.  If a number of folders/directories appear, the only ones you’re concerned with is “www” or “public_html”.  Double click on that folder/directory and upload your files to there. Very often, both directories exist, if that’s the case upload to the “www” folder/directory.

If the “www” or “public_html” folders don’t exist, than you are in the root directory, upload your site there.

EVERY HOME PAGE IS ACTUALLY A FILE NAMED “INDEX” OR “DEFAULT” (example: index. htm, index.html, index.php, index.asp, default.asp, default.html, default.htm).  If that file does not exist in your root directory, than users can not visit your website.

You’ll notice I always used folders/directories in the descriptions above.  We’re used seeing folders on our computers, but they are always directories.  On a web server, directories is more accurate terminology.

In the FileZilla interface image above, you see a number of directories.  Those are the directories in my flathead site.  The first directory is 4sale.  If you were to open a browser and type http://www.flatheadenterprises.com/4sale in the address pane, it will take you to the contents of that directory.  I have an index.html file in that directory, so you’re browser can read it, otherwise, it’s likely you’d get an error message.

FileZilla does not recognize changes you’ve made while the FileZilla application is open.  For example, if you add an image to a folder that you’re working on while FileZilla is open, it will not automatically recognize it.  You’ll need to either close and reopen the application, or as I do, click on some other folder than go back to the folder the image (or whatever) you added is in.  There’s no automatic refresh nor is there a refresh button.

6. Backing up your site is a breeze

To me, this the best part.  You’ve been working for days/weeks/months to get your site to a place where it’s really cool.  But nothing is forever, and if you’re talking electronics, anything can happen at any moment.  Create a folder on your computer called something crazy like “site-backup-(date)”.  Open FileZilla, select all files and folders and download it to that folder.  It’s gonna take a while, but you don’t have to wait for it, so go see what you have saved on DVR  and check back later cause it’s all getting done.  Afterward, burn it to a CD/DVD and you’re completely backed up.  If you are using wordpress or some other database driven website application, than exporting the .sql file and saving that completes the backup, but if you know what that stuff is already, you probably already know this stuff anyway.

Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, love to help.

peace.

Why buy the same movie twice?  Convert your DVD with two FREE programs.

1. Download and install DVD Decrypter and Super Video Converter

• Both are free software programs.  DVD Decrypter was one of the original decrypting programs and still one of the best.  Super is a free audio/video conversion program that can convert almost anything into almost anything.

2. Insert the DVD you want to convert and open DVD Decrypter.

• DVD Decrypter will automatically recognize the dvd and one simple click of a button will copy the files to your hard drive.

3. In DVD Decrypter go to “Edit>Select Main Movie Files”

• DVD’s are split into many different files (see above), but the actual movie is in a few VOB files, which are actually MPEG’s.  As you can see in example #2, this movie was split into 4 sequential VOB files (VTS_03_1.vob through VTS_O3_4.vob).  Don’t use the IFO file.

4. Make a note of the names of the files and where they are being saved.

• On windows machines, the default location is on the C:\ drive (or the same drive as your OS) and it creates a directory or folder with the name of the movie. (see example #2)

5. Click the DVD to hard drive button to save the movie.

Example #2

Example #2

6. Open the folder where the movies were saved, then open the VIDEO_TS directory or folder

• It’s helpful here to switch your folder view to either “List” or “Details” to more easily identify the files you need.

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7. Open Super and choose the lower radio button in the top left. Select “Join Format-Identical Files” from the small arrow next to the window.

• In the top left of the program (see example #3), there are two vertically aligned radio buttons.  The top radio button is to select the Output Container for the movie and the lower button is to select an Output Process.  Clicking on the little arrow just to the right of the window will activate a drop-down menu where you can select your process.

8. Control-click or shift-click the files you need and drag them into the “Job List” window in Super.

• Hold down the control key while clicking on the files to highlight or select more than one, or if they are all together, hold down the shift key and click on the top and bottom files to select multiple files. Once selected, click and hold the selection and drag them into the “Job List” window. (clicking and releasing anywhere in the window that has the selections will deselect the files, and you’ll have to do it over)

Example #3

Example #3

9. Click on the “Join (Active Files)” button just below the Job List window.

• The files need to be named sequentially – The file names need to be identical except for the last digit or letter in order for Super to recognize the correct order.  The example is 1-4, but your files may differ and you may need to rename a few of the file names for the Join process to be successful.

10. After process is complete, remove source files from Job List and replace them with the newly created, “Join”-ed file.

• Joining doesn’t re-encode, it merely concatenates the separate movie files into one continuous movie file, which is probably how you’d prefer to watch it.  By default, this version of Super copies the new file into the same directory or folder as the source files.
• Right mouse-clicking anywhere in Super will bring up the context menu where you can remove the files from the Job List.
• Open the VIDEO_TS directory or folder, click and drag the new file into the Job List window.

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11. In Super, click on the upper radio button, click on the arrow to the right of the window and select “Apple iPod/iPhone (MP4)”

• Super offers several presets to encode your video – choosing Apple iPod/iPhone will automatically format your movie for your iPod

12. Click on the “Encode(Active Files)” button and within a few minutes (could be several), depending on your individual computer’s RAM and CPU speed, your movie will be saved.

• The time it takes to encode your movie can take up to the same length of the movie itself.
• 2-4 Gigs of RAM is recommended.
• The finished movie, formatted for your iPod will most likely be saved in the same directory or folder as the source files.

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After your movie has been successfully converted, just add the new video to your iTunes video library and sync up.  You may want to rename the MP4 file before adding to iTunes, but that’s up to you.

Please leave questions in comments section below.

Have fun.