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I got contacted by my friend over at Audials and was asked if I would be interested in giving away 5 more licenses to their Audials One software package. Of course I said yes which means you now have another chance at getting your hands on this awesome software for free. The best part about being contacted by the company is that they told me if I get enough entries they will send me more licenses for the software.

Before I put up the rules I just wanted to put a few bullet points about Audials’ software direct from someone that works there.

• AudialsOne is a powerful search engine to find music and record it
• AudialsOne can record movies form sites like Netflix, Hulu,
  YouTube, and others
• AudialsOne can record everything you hear on any website or
  streaming application and automatically saves the file as a new
  MP3 or appropriate file format on your computer

So now that you’ve had a chance to read about it, it’s time to win some free stuff! Here’s how you can enter for your chance to win free stuff:

• Posting a comment on this post with a legit email address will get you 1 entry
• Following me on twitter will get you 1 entry
• Tweeting the following will get you 1 entry “@EasyTechTalk is giving away free stuff, RT this to enter the contest”
• Posting about this contest on your own blog with a link back will get you 2 entries
• Following @unmatches on twitter will get you 1 entry (she is a friend of mine and needs followers)
• Subscribing to me on Stumble gets you 1 entry
• Putting this post in an RSS feed on facebook will get you 1 entry

I’m going to run this contest until the end of the month giving you plenty of time to enter.  So tell your friends and twitter followers to come by and enter the contest.

After missing the opportunity to make a holiday gift list last year, I’ve decided to pick one gift this year that I feel is one of the best holiday gifts to give someone, especially someone who is into technology and gadgets.

The Flip MinoHD Camcorder camcorder is an excellent holiday gift for someone you know who is on the go or someone who is extremely mobile.  This little camcorder can store up to an hour of HD video in its 4GB internal memory and has a flip out USB plug, which eliminates the need to carry a cable around with you to hook it up to your computer.

It’s lightweight and compact which makes it easy to carry around so you can capture all the crazy hijinx that you might get into at a moments notice, and it also comes with its own software which will allow you to edit your video and email it to anyone you want.  It also allows you easy upload access to any of your favorite sites like Facebook, Youtube, or Myspace.

In today’s ever growing fast paced mobile world it’s good to have a portable camcorder on you so you are able to capture video of any event you are at.  With the Flip MinoHD’s small size, you are almost always guaranteed that you will be able to take it anywhere that might not allow camcorders such as a concert or even a private event.

I was a little worried when I first saw the flip out USB plug on the Flip MinoHD but after having the chance to use one of my friends’ and play with it a little bit, I found it was able to withstand a pretty solid amount of abuse without damaging the plug or the camcorder.

All in all the Flip MinoHD Camcorder is an amazing holiday gift for that one person you can’t think of anything to get.  And it’s pretty fairly priced for an HD camcorder of its size.

Recently I was contacted by a friend of mine who is working with a company called Audials who provide software that allows you to download music directly from internet radio streams to your computer, and it can also remove DRM (digital rights management) from certain audio files that you might get from other music sites.

Now they have given me one free copy of RS Audials Complete to give away to one lucky reader so here are the details. Each item listed will result in 1 entry to the contest.

• Update your twitter with this tweet “@easytechtalk is giving away FREE software, read about it here http://easytechtalk.com/2009/12/05/audials-software-giveaway/”
• Leave a comment below explaining what software you use to get music, make sure to use a valid email address!
  
• Write a post about this giveaway with a link back to this post and send me an email “dmirro (at) easytechtalk.com”  with a link to your post (if you have more than one blog, each separate blog post will be 1 entry)
• Sign up for my RSS feed using the email subscription box at the top of the site
• Follow me on Twitter

The giveaway will end at 12pm PST on Dec 31 which gives you plenty of time to enter. The winner will be notified by email.

Here is some more information about Audials Complete from their website:

* Download any music you like for free!
* remove DRM protection.
* podcasts, lyrics, album covers and ID3 tags.
* Create mobile ringtones by yourself.

RS Audials Complete can legally removes copy-protection from WMA and M4P audio files.

RS Audials Complete does not just deliver free MP3 music but also entertainment as podcatcher that delivers thousands of free international audio- and video podcasts from an integrated database which is always up to date.

RS Audials Complete automatically brings you the missing ID3-tags for your tracks, album covers and lyrics. Additionally, the Tagrunner editor offers the possibility of manual processing. Synchronization with mobile devices like Apple iPod, MP3-Player or multimedia player comes with Audials Complete as a “by default” function. Besides the Mini-Player, RS Audials complete gives you the ability to play all songs directly within your favorite media player.

Visit the RS Audials Complete homepage here.

UPDATE: The randomizer has spoken and the winner of the contest is MouthyGirl (@mouthygirl)

Recently I had the pleasure of removing the Conficker virus from my machine at home and at work and wanted to share a tool I found that helped me out tremendously.

First of all the Conficker virus is a pretty aggressive bot-net creating virus that spread throughout the internet a few months ago but recently a new variant came up and started infecting computers again. For those of you who don’t know, a bot-net is a large group of infected computers that virus software creators gain access to after their virus infects computers and it allows them to have control over this group of computers to do whatever they want to such as hacking or other malicious acts.

The Conficker virus will do a list of things to your machine to hide the fact that you are infected such as disabling your Windows Automatic Updates, disabling anti virus software updates, and blocking certain websites that would provide help on updating either Windows or your anti virus. Luckily there are companies out there that make virus removal tools to help get rid of these types of viruses.

Enigma software has been the best removal tool I’ve used to date, it’s fast and simple to use and doesn’t really require any input on your part except for hitting a button or two. You can download the Conficker removal tool here. (the link will automatically kick off the download)  For those of you who want to do a little more research first, you can visit Enigma Software’s homepage here.

Now I want to make it clear, due to the recent FTC regulation change (opens a pdf document) that this is NOT a sponsored post, but a helpful post that you will hopefully pass onto your friends to help them find out if they’ve got the Conficker virus or not.  So pass it on.

Got any other good virus removal tools?  Share them in the comments section or send me an email

A lot of people who use social media sites like Myspace or Facebook do so to keep track of and communicate with friends.  These friends could be from kindergarten, college, or work, but they are all considered friends of the person befriending them.  This works well if all people on the friends list can interact with each other or can handle what others have to say, but what happens when someone deliberately posts a comment that is meant to dig at someone else?  What if someone misinterprets what is said in a comment and starts to argue with the person whose friend left the original comment?  This is where social media becomes a battleground for people who dislike each other but who have a common friend battle it out with words and comments.

People are willing to share more information today than they were 5 years ago and it is affecting everything from friendships to relationships, and even jobs.  People are getting fired for posting pictures of how drunk they got over the weekend or posting comments like “callin’ in sick today, so hungover…”  Relationships are being torn apart by ex boyfriends or girlfriends leaving menacing comments or current boyfriends / girlfriends leaving nasty remarks that someone’s ex might see if they go to that person’s myspace or facebook profile.  Some people go as far as uploading videos for their entire friend’s list of people to see of themselves at parties getting drunk and acting slutty or trying to act tough and fighting someone.  Is this too much information for people to see about you?  Do you really want to have your friend back home show everyone how stupid you look when you’re drunk, or how immature you sound as you leave comments on people’s pages in hopes of it hurting someone’s feelings, just to make yourself feel better?  Do people really care about the status of your bathroom trip that you tweeted to twitter?

Part of the problem, and this lies more with Myspace than Facebook, is that the profile pages are public for everyone to see until that user sets it to private.  Now if there was a way of preventing certain friends to see you pictures and comments, and prevent other users from seeing them, then that would alleviate a lot of the problem.  But people don’t want to do that much micromanaging to their account.  Curiosity will always triumph over rationale, and it’s been bred into humans to be jealous and there’s not much that can be done about that.

Social media has undergone a change that has brought it away from it’s original goal of helping people connect and communicate with friends and family, and has turned into yet another popularity contest outside of high school for people to go through and try and gain acceptance through.  What good can come of this?  How are people supposed to grow up if they’re constantly in a state of mind like that of a high schooler?

Now don’t get me wrong, there are sites that are considered social media like linkedin which connect professionals who are looking to expand their network of contacts in hopes of branching out into a new job or new field of interest.  This is what most social media should try and aim to get back to.  Social media should be a way for people to connect and share thoughts or ideas but not promote animosity between people.

Tell me what you think.  Do you think we share too much information with the world, or is this what the new generation should be getting i

Before I moved out to California I worked as a home theater installer for Magnolia Home Theater and the salesmen there would try to sell expensive premium cables to each customer that they helped.  A lot of the premium cable manufacturers would claim extra features like EMI (electromagnetic interference) shielding, or Uni directional electricity flow, which by the way is a load of garbage.  The biggest problem with these premium cables is that most people are not educated on what cables are made of or how they work.

Most cables are made out of wrapped pairs of wires, which you can imagine can’t really vary that much from one cable to the next.  Now each of these wires will be wrapped in some sort of insulation that prevents them from touching each other when they’re inside the main cable.  This is where some cables might have a thicker insulation than others, but they are still basically the same wire.  Now there is a way that some cables will differ from others in that they will have a shielding wrapped around them to protect from electromagnetic interference, which is static that comes from electrical components.

Recently I received an HDMI cable from www.optimization-world.com and I can tell you that this cable is just as good as some premium brands that will remain unnamed (mainly because they feel the need to sue everyone) I put it through a little bit of a rough test banging it around and forcing it into and out of the connectors on my T.V. and it still worked fine.

If you were to cut open premium cables and discount cables you’d find that inside they are almost identical.  The only thing that really separates premium from discount cables are the type of connector on the end.  And that can only go so far as HDMI cables all have the same type of connector.

Now throughout the course of time that I worked for Magnolia, I had several premium cables fail on me right out of the box some of which cost upwards of $100 or more.  The cable I got in the mail costs $9.99. Why would anyone want to pay so much for a cable they can get for a fraction of the price?  I’m not just saying this because they gave me a free cable, as I have plenty of cables that I already use and this is just a bonus one for my next T.V. purchase, but this cable is just as good as the others.  It feels sturdy, it’s got some of the same features as premium cables such as gold connectors and being certified HDMI.

Do you have a preference on what cables you use?  Do you stick to one brand or do you shop around and look for good deals?  Let everyone know in the comments section.

Have you logged into your wordpress account lately and noticed that lovely “Howdy” greeting message near your name at the top of your admin page?  Have you ever wanted to change the default wordpress greeting message to something a little more exotic or personal?  This can be changed with a simple edit to one file in your wordpress directory and I’ll show you how.

• First, open your FTP program and login to the account where you want to change the message.

• Navigate your way to your wp-admin folder and inside you will find a file called admin-header.php

• Now you’re going to open the file using your favorite text editor, not MS word but a good one like Notepad++ and you’re going to find line #108 which reads “<p><?php printf(__(‘Howdy, <a href=”%1$s” title=”Edit your profile”>%2$s</a>’), ‘profile.php’, $user_identity) ?>“

Now all you have to do is change the “Howdy” to read something more exotic like bon jour, or buenos dias.  Or maybe leave a message for one of your authors like “post more!”  Just remember that this will change the message for anyone that signs into your blog whether they are an admin or an author.

And there you have it, you’ve given your admin page a little personal touch and you won’t have to see the ugly wordpress “Howdy” greeting again.

To follow up my post about Windows keyboard shortcuts, and to appease my mac readers out there I wanted to put up a quick reference guide for the most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts.  Remember, keyboard shortcuts will make your life so much easier once you start using them on a regular basis.  Below you will find my list of the most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts.

Now keep in mind that when using these shortcuts that you have the proper menu at the time. For example, if the keyboard shortcut you want to use is listed as a Finder Menu shortcut, then you must make sure that the menu at the top of the screen says “Finder”, otherwise you will be using a shortcut that might not be available at the time.

For Those of you who are unfamiliar with Mac keyboards, the command key is the one that looks like this:

• Shift-Command-Delete     Finder Menu     Empty Trash
• Command-Delete     File Menu     Move to Trash
• Shift-Command-N     File Menu     New Folder
• Command-N     File Menu     New Finder window
• Command-O     File Menu     Open
• Command-S     File Menu     Save
• Command-P     File Menu     Print
• Command-I     File Menu     Get Info
• Command-D     File Menu     Duplicate
• Command-L     File Menu     Make Alias
• Command-R     File Menu     Show original
• Command-E     File Menu     Eject
• Command-F     File Menu     Find
• Command-Z     Edit Menu     Undo
• Command-X     Edit Menu     Cut
• Command-C     Edit Menu     Copy
• Command-V     Edit Menu     Paste
• Command-A     Edit Menu     Select All
• Command-T     File Menu     Add to Favorites (Mac OS X 10.2.8 or earlier), Add to Sidebar (Mac OS X10.3 or later—use Shift-Command-T for Add to Favorites)

So there you have it, Easy Tech Talk’s list of most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts.  Do you have a shortcut that you use often that isn’t listed here?  Leave a comment and tell me about it and I’ll update my list with it.