Finding the iPad’s price tag too hefty? Check out the Kindle Fire, a viable alternative to the iPad at a fraction of the cost.
Priced at a mere $199, Amazon’s addition to the tablet market is getting some rave reviews and ranks high on a lot of wish lists. The Fire performs many of the iPad’s functions, though on a smaller scale (less memory, shorter battery life, physically smaller, etc.). Built with a 7″ screen, it has access to with roughly 8,500 apps and links seamlessly with Amazon’s book services and digital music, video, and magazine collection.
The iPad has larger screen, camera, microphone, calendar, maps, GPS and built-in cellular connectivity – none of which is found on the Fire (which is Wi-Fi only). But for those who simply want to check their email, browse the Internet, play games and read books and magazines, the Fire is an excellent, cost-friendly option. Visit www.amazon.com/KindleFire for more information.
It’s a New Year, so who’s NOT thinking about taking off a few pounds after the holidays! Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Body book is a bit thick and intimidating in size (550 pages), but it contains in the first 150 pages, a very easy to follow weight loss plan — that even I was able to follow! I started the diet in March and, by July, I had lost 30 lbs. Quite a few people who know me have asked me about the diet, so I have decided to put together a “do – don’t do” list that will help others get started. If you decide to go for it, I hope you will let me know how it’s going, or if you get “stuck”, email me – I’d be glad to help you out.
Number one on the list below is Tim’s rule that you need to eat within 30 minutes of waking up. Tim goes into more detail on page 95 of his book in the section titled “Mistake #1: NOT EATING WITHIN ONE HOUR OF WAKING, PREFERABLY WITHIN 30 MINUTES – so you will want to check that out. I am just not a “traditional breakfast” eater (2-3 whole eggs required), so I go with specially formulated (made with cold filtered whey protein isolate from grass fed cows – no dairy) chocolate or vanilla shakes (30 grams powder mixed with ice and water) – very fast, and very easy. Supermarket and GNC protein powders won’t work because they use dairy-based protein. Get the right protein here: EnergyFirst Protein Powder.
Tim recommends a pretty complicated vitamin regiment – he calls this the “Four Horseman of Fat-Loss: PAGG.” Don’t even try to decipher all the different supplements and dosages to make up the PAGG stack. Just order yours here: Order your PAGG stack from Amazon.
If you can’t commit to measuring and recording your progress once per week, don’t bother doing the diet — really. Some weeks, you will lose pounds, other weeks you will lose inches or body fat. If you are not measuring, you will become unmotivated and quit. You need to record your weight, neck, arm, waist, leg, and body fat measurements each week on the same day and time. Doing so creates a “game worth playing” and increases the certainty that you will succeed. This is a hassle without the right tools, so get these: Caliper & Tape Measure from Amazon.
Don’ts
- Don’t skip breakfast.
- Don’t exercise too much – it really won’t help. (20 min per week is ok)
- Don’t drink any soda – diet or otherwise.
- Don’t eat anything white – no rice, no potatoes, no bread.
- Don’t eat any dairy - except on your cheat day.
- Don’t eat fruit – except on your cheat day.
- Don’t try to restrict portions or calories.
- Don’t drink beer, white wine, or spirits – except on your cheat day.
Do’s
- Do cheat one day per week – really! You can eat anything/any quantity you want and the cheat day serves as an important metabolic reset.
- Do record your weight, measurements, and body fat every Saturday morning.
- Do eat all the salads and vegetables you want.
- Do drink lots of water – especially on your cheat day.
- Do eat at least 20 grams of protein per meal.
- Do drink unsweetened Ice Tea and Coffee, and of course, water.
- Do add cinnamon to coffee – but no cream, sugar or sweetener.
- Do Eat out at Chipotle for lunch – no rice, double beans – the perfect 4HB meal!
- Do eat beans/lentles/legumes with every meal.
- Do drink red wine – it’s permitted on the diet!
Remember, you are not eating carbs anymore, except the “slow carbs” contained in beans/lentils/legumes; so you may need to eat larger portions than you are used to. If you feel like sneaking while on this diet, you are doing something wrong — most likely, you are not eating enough food. Tim says, “Expect to eat two to three times as much volume, and assume you should (p.88).” Finally, it is worth repeating, failure to drink water inhibits weight loss; so drink more than you are used to, especially on your cheat day.
Good luck, and I hope you will create a response to this post if I left something off that you think will help the rest of us!
Brent’s Stats:
| Before 4HB diet Weight: 190 lbs Body Fat: 31.4% Waist: 39.625 inches |
After 4HB diet Weight: 157 lbs Body Fat: 12.1% Waist 32 inches |
Network firewalls and antivirus software are staples of any business place. But a third and equally vital safeguard has become just as important: Web filtering.
Over 41 percent of small businesses, as well as two-thirds of large companies, use web filtering, according to research firm IDC. At its most basic level, a web filtering tool blocks certain URLs that companies don’t want employees drifting onto. With the surplus of sites like Facebook and Twitter, companies are in dire need of limiting the usage of its networks in order to keep their employees on task and networks secure and threat-free. web filterers not only stop inbound threats such as spam and viruses, but also outbound threats that can potentially leak confidential information.
Smaller organizations typically start with products that have multiple functions – business-friendly routers with integrated firewalls and built-in unified threat management are best.
One web filtering product I recommend (here comes my shameless plug) is DCG’s own BlaskguardTM Internet Filter. On top of getting completely secure Internet content filtering, BlaskguardTM provides daily reporting, including top 10 websites visited by hits or bytes transferred; top 10 violators by user name, machine name or type; hourly and daily Internet usage graphs; and tracking of file sharing applications and non-web protocols. 100% guaranteed-take a look at DCG’s Internet Content Filter.
Dear Brent,
It has become nearly impossible for me to have a decent conversation on my cell phone. With the constant feedback, dropped connections and delays in voice travel, I dread making or answering calls on my cell and can’t depend on it for data. Is there something I can do to improve my reception?
There are two different devices you can buy to address this problem: femtocells and repeaters (also known as boosters). They work, but they’re expensive.
Femtocells, sold by AT&T and Verizon, connect to a home network router and use your wired broadband connection to move voice calls and data services to and from your carrier’s network. Femtocells don’t rely on the carrier’s towers at all and provide immediate five-bar coverage across an area of up to 2500 square feet, regardless of how far you are from a cell phone tower. Femtocells can be configured to recognize only the phones you authorize, eliminating the ability of neighbors to tap into your service. Femtocells can only be used at the address where it is registered, which could enable carriers to offer other services, such as 911.
AT&T’s solution for any 3G device is the MicroCell for $150 plus other fees imposed by the carrier. For $250, Verizon sells the Network Extender which also supports 3G data and voice and is compatible with all Verizon Wireless phones as well as some headsets.
Unlike femtocells, repeaters/boosters depend on cell tower signals to amplify and rebroadcast stronger signals and work independently of carriers. They are manufactured and sold by third parties and, while they do reach across a larger area than femtocells, cannot be configured to recognize specific phones. Repeater kits pricing depends on how large an area you want to cover and can range from $169 to $399; kits that cover areas larger than 2500 feet can cost up to $600.
Visit www.att.com or www.verizon.com for more on these products.
Bill Gates said it best: “Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.”
He was, of course, referring to the advantages of having multiple monitors connected to his computer. And if anyone knows about how to get the best out of a computer, it’s Bill Gates.
More and more people are hooking up dual monitors to their computers because of the dramatic effect it has on their efficiency. Many view their added monitor as an inexpensive, simple way to upgrade their PC without the burden of any new, expensive hardware.
The benefits of two monitors are vital to improving your workflow:
Multitask. Two monitors afford you the luxury of multitasking. Have your email open on one screen and instantly receive messages while you navigate a website or complicated spreadsheet on the other. Skype with a colleague on one screen while looking at various websites on the other. View one large document across both screens without shrinking it down to an impossible-to-read size. The opportunities are endless. Dual monitors eliminate the annoying, incessant clicking between browser windows.
View with Ease. Ever view two different documents side-by-side and get frustrated at how far down you have to shrink them in order to do so? Having two monitors allows you to look at those documents in large, easy-to-read fonts vs. shrinking them down to fit side-by-side on a solitary monitor.
Save Paper. Instead of printing out large, cumbersome spreadsheets in order to see them in their entirety, you can view different parts of these documents on two different screens, presenting the entire document in one snapshot.
It’s relatively cheap and easy to install two monitors. Most of today’s graphics cards and motherboards support two monitors. And with monitors costing nearly seven times less than they did 10 years ago, it’s the cheapest upgrade you can get!
If you have an iPhone or iPad, the iOS 5 upgrade is an absolute must. This revision is so jam packed with features, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.
It’s free for the first 5 GB, however for 10 GB or more you’ll pay a yearly fee. Worth it? You decide:
Top 10 Reasons to get iOS 5
1. Notification Center. Now more robust, you can better manage your email, texts, friend requests and more all in one convenient location.
2. Safari. With improved performance, Safari’s tabbed interface offers ad-free web articles and a reading list that lets you save articles on all your devices.
3. PC Free. Computer no longer needed: iCloud handles all of the synching and backups for you.
4. Find My iPhone. If you lose your iPhone, don’t worry. This feature helps you locate the lost device on a map, by playing a sound or displaying a message.
5. Camera & Photos. Now you can use the volume buttons to snap your photos, crop, rotate, enhance and remove red eye without leaving the photo app, and push all your pictures to your other devices.
6. Mail. Revamped to let you flag important messages, add or delete mail folders, and format text all with the swipe of a finger.
7. Wi-Fi Sync. Wires are becoming a thing of the past. Now you can sync your iOS devices with your PC or MAC over Wi-Fi.
8. Calendar. Get an entire year’s view on iPad and a week-at-a glance on iPhone. iCloud lets you share calendars with others and keeps your dates in sync on all your devices.
9. Reminders. You’ll never forget to do a task. Since its location based, your device will know which company parking lot you’ve just pulled into, and it will remind you to visit a specific person at that company!
10. Newsstand. Your magazine and newspaper app subscriptions can be organized all in one folder.
Check out all the features of Apple’s newest upgrade at www.apple.com/ios.
Suffering from information overload? Zite, a free app for the iPad, eliminates the relentless sifting through multiple newspapers, magazines, and websites to get only the news and information you’re interested in and compiles it into one all-inclusive personalized magazine.
With a look and feel of The New York Times, Zite scours more than half a million web domains to find precise news articles that interest only you. It learns your interests by evaluating what you read and post on your social networks, blogs and websites (such as Google Reader), then plugs that information into what becomes your own personal magazine tailored to your specific interests. The more you use it, the more personalized it gets. Zite will determine if you’re a political junkie, tech fanatic or sports addict (or all of the above) and bring you only the news you crave.
Go to www.zite.com to get an overview or download it from your iPad App Store for free.
If you are a small to medium sized business that has frequent e-mail problems including servers going down, slow performance, too many spam e-mails and high IT support and software costs, read on.
Outsourcing your email to Computer Guys’ PrivateCloudTM is often a much cheaper and easier way of getting rid of all these issues at a much lower cost to your company. Here’s how it works: Instead of purchasing and maintaining your e-mail in house which can be costly and time consuming, your Exchange server is hosted (and maintained) in a high-performance, high-security hosting company “in the cloud” where you can access it securely from any device or PC.
Best of all, you don’t have to make any changes in HOW you access your e-mail – your messages will simply be delivered to your inbox, phone, or other device faster and with fewer issues, and it will always be synchronized and up-to-date!
Here are just a few of the advantages:
-No more software, hardware or maintenance costs. YOU don’t have to purchase the hardware and software, nor do you have to maintain the system. This is all included in a very low monthly fee.
-High speed, “always on” e-mail. The Microsoft Exchange platform in the DCG PrivateCloudTM solution provides our clients high-performance systems with multiple “fail over” backup servers, maintained and monitored like Fort Knox; something you wouldn’t need for your small business. However, since you are hosting on our platform, you get all the benefits of a high-performance system without the costs. Your in-house server could go down and you’d STILL have access to your e-mail, contacts and calendar.
-Automatic backups and archiving. What would you do if your in-house e-mail server failed and erased your messages? Or what if a disgruntled employee deleted all their e-mails? If you were hosting your Exchange, these would be non-issues since your e-mails are backed up daily and secured.
-Faster set up. Installing an Exchange server can take days. When we host your Exchange; setting up a new user takes minutes.
-Access your e-mail and calendar from anywhere. You don’t have to remote into your office PC; now you can securely access your e-mail from any device or PC, at anytime!
Dear Brent,
Sometimes I want to send out large files, like pictures or videos, via email to my family and friends, but my email program won’t let me. It takes too long to send out multiple emails and some files you just can’t split up. Is there a better way to send out large attachments?
There are many solutions out there to solve the problem of sharing large files, but YouSendIt is one of the most convenient and easiest ways to send huge files via email. You can go on their website, install an Outlook plugin or download YouSendIt Express (PC and Mac). Using this program is as easy as writing an email – when you start up the program, add the recipients (and optional subject and body) and add the files you want to send. The recipients will get an email with a link where they can download the files.
The Lite version is free, but is limited to sending one file at a time with a maximum of 100 MB file size. A Pro Account ($9.99 per month) lets you send several files at once, up to 2GB and a robust Business Account ($29.98 per month) lets you set up teams of several users, have unlimited downloads and other features. A “Pay-per-use” option for Lite and Pro is also available for additional features.
Maybe you’re one of those people who has to have the latest smartphone, or you’ve been hanging on to your first generation BlackBerry for year and have been dying to change it – either way, when you upgrade or switch, you’ve got to get rid of that old technology. Rather than letting your old junk lie at the bottom of a landfill, why not make a bit of spending cash from them? You can trade in your old tech, donate it for a nice tax break or simply sell it. There are several ways to do it, including selling it yourself on eBay or Craigslist. But if you don’t have the time or patience to deal with buyers, we suggest you use a service where you can just mail out your old phone, and wait for the cash to show up?!
Cell for Cash is one such service. According to their website, all you have to do is “Find, submit and send” to receive cash for your phone. First, you have to find your phone’s manufacturer from a list on their home page and choose the model. You can also see how much they’ll pay for your phone. Next, you submit by pressing “sell this phone” at the bottom of the page (kind of like a reverse “buy this now”). Once you fill out the information, they will send you a shipping box (within 5 business days) with a shipping label so you can send in your old phone. Once they have checked the phone and approved the sale (which takes about 2-3 weeks), they’ll mail you a check within 45 days. It takes a while to get your payment, but it’s definitely better than having to deal with unscrupulous buyers yourself or just letting your old phone rot in the back of your closet.
And how much could you get for your old tech? On the higher end, the latest generation of iPhones can sell from $298 – $336 and the Blackberry Bold sells for about $138. Lower end phones, like the Palm Pixie can sell for as little as $3 or they offer free recycling if you simply just want to get rid of your old phone. According to their website, the old phones are sold abroad, donated to shelters and charities (where they are designated as 911 emergency phones) or simply recycled for their parts.
DCG Site
Dependable Computer Guys, Inc