2005 November

Santa Chris is comin’ to town again, but this time he’s aimin’ on stayin’ longer than your average Christmas tree. We launched The Chris Pirillo Show almost a year ago and have been broadcasting live on the Internet almost every Thursday night. We’ve certainly uploaded far more than a year’s worth of fantastic MP3s since [...]

Your sold, donated or discarded computer could cost you thousands!
Formatting your hard drive DOES NOT erase your data!
Don’t give away your personal information with your old PC. Over the past five years, one in four households was victimized by identity theft. If you do not erase your personal information before selling or donating your computer, [...]

ClipTorrent is a handy clipboard utility that allows you to automatically spell check any text that you copy to the clipboard using multiple dictionaries. In addition, the program functions as a clipboard repository that allows you to quickly paste previously copied text snippets. ClipTorrent can also copy file names and paths of selected files in [...]

With so many cool services on the Internet requiring that you create an account to use them, it only makes sense that you’ll soon be drowning in passwords if you’re not already doing so. Sure, you could just use the same password for everything, but that’s definitely not the safest way to go. It’s important [...]

Jim (aka AsparaGus), wrote to take exception to my preference for Firefox. I invited him to expound on his reasons for the column, and here’s what he offered. He makes some valid points.

I was babbling about the early days, before the Web and search engines. Remember Archie and Gopher servers? And WAIS and Veronica? It was still hard to find what you wanted. The first search engine I came across, I mean the first spider type, was Lycos at CMU. Except back then there was no fancy [...]

Have you ever visited a Web site containing information that you want to share with a friend, your family, or your co-workers? In IE, you can send the page or a link to the page via e-mail to someone else.

Many computer users still connect to the Internet using a modem and their telephone line. If someone on your network reports that they cannot establish a dial-up connection, you should first verify that the modem is working correctly. For advanced troubleshooting you can log modem commands to a text file. You can use the information [...]

December
The Gregorian calendar we use today was created in the 1580s by Pope Gregory XIII. Start your new year here, and discover the history of the calendar’s development.

Brook says:
“My computer won’t shut down; I have to use the power button. I’m running Windows XP. Please help!”
The Geek replies:
Brook, there are many possible causes for your problem, but the most common one I see on computers like yours is a thing called the �nVidia Driver Helper� service. Neither I, nor my [...]