Nov 30, 2010

SHOPPING ONLINE: Use online price comparison sites to find the best deals

To find the best deals on holiday gifts (for others or even for yourself!) it's a good idea to take time to research the best prices using online price comparison sites before making a purchase.  ABC NEWS reports in this video that Consumer Reports recommends Price Grabber as the best price comparison site:

Nov 24, 2010

We are thankful for you!

To all of our clients, family, friends, Facebook "likers," Twitter followers, blog readers and newsletter subscribers, we'd like to say a big thank you to you for your support and patronage of New Millennium Computers NY.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Best,

Mike & Momodou

Check out the CEA’S 2010 Holiday Wish List – The Years Top Ten Tech Gifts


CEA’S 2010 Holiday Wish List – The Years Top Ten Tech Gifts from YourUpdateTV on Vimeo.

See also: 

Nov 23, 2010

Where to find great online deals for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

If you are hunting down some great Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals from your favorite online retailers, check out CyberMonday.com.  The site is a portal to deals and special offers from over 550 online retailers (including some tech favorites like Apple, Dell, Sony and HP).
Get special offers including free shipping at hundreds of merchants during the holidays and throughout the year. On the day of Cyber Monday there will be hourly specials and exclusives from your favorite online retailers. Sneak peeks of the hourly deals will be shared via email alerts so make sure to sign up for special savings and the latest offers.

In addition to hourly deals, the new site offers:

  • An improved site design and user friendly interface
  • A 'green' category for environmentally safe products
  • A sophisticated new comparison shopping engine*
Happy Shopping!!!

See also:  How to Get the Best Deals with All Your Online Shopping

*Source: http://www.cybermonday.com/hiw____.htm

Nov 18, 2010

Organize your photos on your computer

After sharing your holiday photos online and via email, we recommend that you take the time to organize your photos on your computer so you can find them when next you want to look at them.
Mac users, here a great demo on organizing your digital photographs on your computer


For Windows users, here are some photo organizing tips using the Windows Live Photo Gallery


Microsoft offers more photo organizing tips, here.

Nov 17, 2010

Reduce the size of your digital photos before emailing

If you want to share your holiday photos via email, here are some great tips to reduce the file size of your photos before sending your email.

Edit & Share PhotosHow To Resize Your Digital Photos

Nov 16, 2010

Share your holiday photos online

Once you've snapped tons of photos of your family and friends at your holiday gatherings, no doubt you will want to show off your photography skills to your loved ones!  Here's a great tutorial on how to share those photo memories online:

Nov 12, 2010

MS Word templates for Thanksgiving (and other holiday) invitations, cards and menus

The always helpful Microsoft Office blog shared some great templates for creating Thanksgiving inviations, place-cards, menus and greeting cards.  If you've got a long iist of people to send invitation or cards to, try a mail merge to save yourself from having to address each envelope by hand, fiund a great tutorial  from Microsoft here

Microsoft does offer templates for all holidays throughout the year, check out the full list, here.

Nov 11, 2010

Protect your privacy on social networks

Social networks are built on the premise of sharing, but often users post personal information such as birth dates, phone numbers, addresses and employers on their social network profiles without realizing that they may be "sharing" this information with people they don't know - people that may be able to access this information if users don't take measures to protect their information.  For instance, if any of your Facebook privacy settings are set to "everyone"  then it can be found by anyone on the Internet (including potential and/or current employers).

Take a few minutes to read the privacy policies of any social networks of which you are a member and find out the steps you need to adjust the privacy settings of your social networking profiles to a level you are comfortable with and safeguard your personal information.  Here are some links with tips on how to adjust privacy settings on some of the most popular social networks:

See also:

Nov 10, 2010

Want to know when Facebook users are most active?

Right now, Wednesdays at 3pm Eastern time!!!

Here are some key findings reported by Mashable of a study by Vitrue on the times when Facebook's users are most active:
  • The three biggest usage spikes tend to occur on weekdays at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET.
  • The biggest spike occurs at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays.
  • Weekday usage is pretty steady, however Wednesday at 3:00 pm ET is consistently the busiest period.
  • Fans are less active on Sunday compared to all other days of the week.
Great news for businesses wanting to know the ideal times to post status updates on their Facebook pages.  Read more of Mashable's summary of the Vitrue study, here.
See also: 3 Twitter Tools to Determine the Best Time to Tweet

Beware of malware on your computer to protect your privacy

This week we are discussing ways to protect your privacy while browsing online.  One of the key threats to your online privacy is malware which can be picked up from email attachments, clicking on links to unknown websites, clicking on pop-up windows, file sharing via the web or free downloads.  Microsoft describes the term malware as being derived  from the "two words 'malicious software,' and refers to any software that is designed to cause damage to a computer, server, or network.  Viruses, spyware, worms, key loggers, and Trojans are examples of malware.  If you click links that are disguised as images, audio, or video files which might appear on suspicious websites or in Instant Messages (IMs) or email messages, you might expose your computer to malware. In some cases, malware can even be hidden in files that have been uploaded to reputable websites.  Malware can:

  • Corrupt data.
  • Slow down your computer.
  • Use your email or instant message(IM) program to spread itself to other computers.
  • Erase everything on your computer.
  • Result in identity theft or give a criminal access to your web accounts."*

To help protect your computer from malware, you should should install anti-virus software including a firewall and be sure to update the software regularly.  As an extra preventive step, adjust the security settings on your browser to control the types of websites that can be accessed, block pop-ups, how cookies are handled, etc.

If you have malware on your computer and need help removing those files, give us a call at  (212) 851-8426 to make an appointment.

See also:

*Source: www.microsoft.com/protect/learnabout/iemalware.aspx

Nov 9, 2010

PRIVACY ALERT: Marketers may be tracking your online activity

A recent Wall Street Journal investigation, part of their "What They Know" series of reports on online privacy issues reveals that marketers may be tracking your online activity.  Web users (especially children) are usually unaware that some of the websites they visit will install tracking software such as a "beacon" or "cookie" on their computers to track the other websites that they browse and sometimes even what they type on those sites in order to create a profile of the user which they can then sell to marketers.
Here are some of the findings as reported by the Journal::
  • The study found that the nation's 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred. The nonprofit Wikipedia installed none.
  • Tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to "cookie" files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them.
  • These profiles of individuals, constantly refreshed, are bought and sold on stock-market-like exchanges that have sprung up in the past 18 months.*
For more news and video from the WSJ's "What They Know" series of reports, visit their website here.  Below is a video from the series discussing how a customer is profiled on websites.


*Source:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703940904575395073512989404.html

Nov 8, 2010

Now you can get a "deal" when you "check-in" using Facebook Places

A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals that just 4% of online adults use location-based "check-in" services.  But just ahead of the holiday shopping season, Facebook has launched it's new Deals service which offers deals to consumers when they "check-in" at participating businesses using Facebook Places.  Facebook offers a tutorial for business on how to create a "deal," watch the video here.

For Facebook users, here's an introduction to finding deals on Facebook:

This week's technology tips, tricks and news

Hello all, welcome to Monday. We hope you are adjusting well to the time change!  Check out this week's technology tips, tricks and news below!

TIPS & TRICKS

A Fall Guide: How to Pick Your Next Computer

MS Word tips

Email:

How to Remove Location Information from Picasa Photos

Use This Shortcut to Quickly Drag Files to the Desktop

How to Make iTunes Keep Volume Consistent

NEWS

LinkedIn to let members recommend products

Privacy & Security issues:

Social media:

EBay Attempts to Clean Up the Clutter

AT&T’s Bet on Health Technology

Sesame Street' skit slaps 'an app for that' concept

Text Temptations Affect Teens' Sleep

VIDEO: The Wall Street Journal's review of Canon’s new 18 mega-pixel camera

Nov 5, 2010

TIP: How to publish your writing as an e-book

Some novelists, poets, researchers and other writers are choosing to digitally self-publish their works as electronic books or  "e-books."  With the popularity of devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Apple’s iPad, and other e-readers and tablet PC’s, sales of e-books are increasing making this a great alternative to publishing via an established publishing company.  And if you are eco-conscious, some argue that e-books and readers may have a smaller carbon footprint that traditional print books.

Some key things to remember if you are publishing an e-book:

  • Take time to edit your work, just as an editor at a publishing company would do.
  • Format your e-book file properly before uploading to your e-book vendor for a clean, professional look.  Also, you may have to create different formats (HTML, Word document, PDF, ePub) of your e-book if you use multiple vendors - do research to find out the best format for each vendor.
    • For Microsoft Word files, be sure to remove any headers, footers and page numbers in your file.  Then create a Table of Contents for your file, preferably one that is "clickable" and will take readers directly to a desired section of your e-book.
    • Word documents are not edit-proof and can be transferred to other computers so we recommend that you convert files created in Word to PDF format before issuing as an e-book.  Try Abode's free PDF converter (limit of 5 files) or download a free printer driver such as PDF995 that allows you to print your documents as PDF files.
      • If using Word to publish for the Microsoft Reader format, follow the layout guide, download here and the conversion guide, download here.  You can encrypt your Microsoft Reader e-book file to protect your copyright.
  • The quality and capabilities of e-readers varies widely so keep graphics and font styling simple to ensure that all readers can view your content as intended.

Amazon has a great video tutorial on how to publish to Kindle.

The CreativePenn.com offers tips on publishing for the iPad, here.

Check out ABC News’ coverage of authors who have self-published e-books.

 See also:


Nov 4, 2010

Tips on computers and occupational health

Many of us spend the majority of our worksdays sitting in front of a computer but we should make an effort to take breaks throughout the day to refresh our minds and bodies in addition to taking care to prevent occuaption health hazards such as carpal tunnel syndorome.  The Occupational Safety & Health Administration offers some great information on occupational standards, hazards and solutions here.

WedMD.com has a great video with tips on setting up an ergonomically healthy workstation and some exercises that can be done in your desk/office area, watch it here.  If you want to relieve upper back, neck or shoulder pain from your long workdays, here's another great video from Desk-Trainer.com with some excercises you could do while seated in your chair!

And after your long day at work, you may want a mental break and the opportunity to destress. Karen Rose, Master Herbalist and owner of Sacred Vibes Healing spoke with Black Enterpise's Business Report about using aromatherapy to relax after a long workday, watch the video here.

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