PC Memoirs

One of my friends complained that something’s wrong with her laptop, so I offered to help. The laptop screen was totally dark and I could barely see anything. It looked bad at first, but there was hope, because if you see something, this means you probably don’t have to replace the whole screen. I suspected a faulty inverter or backlight. But how do you know which one to replace?

The first thing I did was to connect the laptop to an external monitor. If the picture is normal, you can eliminate any graphic card issues. As expected, the picture was there, bright and shiny. This meant that the problem was definitely in the laptop screen.

As mentioned above, most likely a failed inverter or a faulty back light caused this problem. Both are in the screen, but the inverter is much easier to remove and replace. Luckily, this is the more common cause. Back light tube can also fail, but this happens rarely. I already repaired another laptop with the same problem by replacing the inverter, and this time I suspected the same thing happened. And I was right…

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It’s been more than a year since I published the list of best Antivirus software 2009. Now it’s time to replace that list with best antivirus software 2010.

I have collected information from several Web sites, and considered expert as well as user reviews and added some of my own findings. Now I have a new list of programs that are most effective in preventing and cleaning virus infections. You should also know that I considered the price of the software while making my selection. Again, you won’t see any Symantec products, simply because I have had too much bad experience with Norton Antivirus and Internet Security programs.

This is my selection of 10 best Antivirus programs for 2010:

1. Shield Deluxe $19.95
2. Kaspersky Antivirus $39.95
3. Bitdefender $29.95
4. Vipre Antivirus $29.95
5. AVG Antivirus 9.0 $34.99
6. Eset nod32 Antivirus $39.95
7. Avast Pro Antivirus $49.95
8. Webroot Antivirus $39.95
9. F-Secure Antivirus $39.95
10. McAfee Antivirus $39.95

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I am a Paypal user, and I like Paypal. It provides all that I need as a casual eBay buyer and seller, I am able to send and accept money from all over the world and it protects me from fraud. I especially like the fact that Paypal offers buyer protection, because once I paid over $750 for a laptop that never arrived, and Paypal was kind enough to return (almost) all of my money. I’m quite happy with Paypal.

Having said all this, I know that some people hate Paypal and want to stay away. Many had a really bad experience and left the service, promising never to return. I read many negative comments about Paypal on the Internet, and the complaints were numerous: from bad customer service, to the fact that you can’t access your money instantly, weak buyer protection – there are simply too many to list. So, I tried to find out what other companies offer similar or even better service.

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One of my readers asked me to explain how he can transfer his favorite websites from Internet Explorer to another PC or laptop. This may sound easy to anyone who is experienced with computers or whoever did this before, but definitely not to the basic user. I knew it was a simple task, but since I had never attempted that, I had to do some research myself.

There are many Web sites which explain how to move your favorite Web links from one computer to another, and I confirmed the following method with a simple Google search.

All you have to do is copy your favorites folder from Documents and Settings (WinXP) or Users (Vista/7) and move it to the new PC.

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Do you sometimes wish you could watch those funny Youtube videos but you don’t have an Internet connection? Or concerts and video clips of your favorite band? I have never downloaded any clips from Youtube, but I was still curious about how this can be done, since there is no download link. I just assumed it was impossible. That is, until I discovered several tools that let you do this.

Here are some that I found:

KeepVid – Simply add this tool to your favorites. When you watch a Youtube video, just click the Keep It  button to save.

SaveTube – Just copy the YouTube video URL, paste into the box and press GO. This tool is also suitable for downloads of high definition videos.

Savevid – With savevid you can download videos from most streaming video sites. You can download videos from Youtube, Google Videos, Metacafe and more in FLV, AVI, MOV, MPG or WMV formats.

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