jeremyfrombenton

I hope the following tutorial will clear up any misconceptions on how to figure something out via the internets.

1. Find your computing machine (desktop or laptop).
2. Get you some internets or internets2.
3. Open up your internets browser (Internets Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc.).
4. Go to a search engine website (google, yahoo, msn, etc.).
5. Decide on something to figure out. In this tutorial, we want to figure out ‘how to solve a rubik’s cube.’
6. Type your question into the search box. For example, type in the following question: how do i solve a rubik’s cube?
7. Hit enter.
8. You should see a plethora of links on how to solve a rubik’s cube.
9. Click on a link. If you are not totally satisfied that the selected site can lead you to success in your endeavor to conquer the rubik’s cube, try a different link. Keep trying until you have solved the rubik’s cube (do not remove the stickers- that’s cheating).
10. Think of a different question, go back to number 6.

Finding a twenty in your pocket is fun. Setting up networking in Windows: not so much. It’s usually a pain to get everything working and theoretically you can network between XP and Vista machines. Still interested? Well, good luck with the following:

1. Complete the original ‘Setup a wireless network’.
2. Be sure your Windows User Account is password protected. If it is not, password protect it by going to Start and clicking on Control Panel. Click User Accounts. Click on your user account. Click on Create a password if you aren’t password protected. Accept the settings and move on. Do this for all computers on the network. Having your user account name on all computers sometimes makes the process easier.
3. In Windows XP, hit Start and click Control Panel. Click on System. Click on the Computer Name tab. Here you rename the name of the network (Workgroup) to something other than WORKGROUP (all computers on your network should be named the same). When you are finished click Apply, then OK. In Microsoft Vista, hit Start and click Control Panel. Click on System and Maintenance. Click System. Click See the name of this computer to see your computer’s name and domain. Click Change Settings: A new window will be displayed. Here you rename the name of the network (Workgroup) to something other than WORKGROUP (all computers on your network should be named the same). When you are finished click Apply, then OK.
4. To share a folder, right-click on a folder and click Properties. Click on the Sharing tab. Enable Sharing by accepting any warnings Windows gives you. Type in a name for the shared folder (Videos, Pictures, Music, etc.). Set a password if you wish (I would wish that). Accept your changes and move on.
5. To share a printer, hit Start and click Control Panel. Click Printers and Faxes. Right-click on the printer you wish to share and click Properties. Click Sharing. Type in the share information as needed and hit OK, Apply, Yes, Sure, Affirmative, or whatever it takes to get out of there. Remember exactly what you name this share because when you want to print over a network, you have to type the printer name in exactly.
6. To add a network printer, go back to the Printers and Faxes box you visited earlier from the Control Panel. Click on Add a printer. Select Network Printer and click Next. Type in the name of the printer from step 5. Click Next, OK, etc. and… hopefully it worked. If not, restart the computers and try step 6 again.
7. Hit Start and click Network. Your shares should pop up. If they don’t restart all computers, enter your passwords to log in to Windows and try again.

Once again, I wish you luck. If you need further assistance, Google it.

Real player used to be the way to listen to music online, but thankfully now there are alternatives. I have tried many programs and formats and have decided that using foobar2000 and shoutcast radio stations is the easiest and least taxing on your computer and internet bandwidth. Here’s what you do:

1. Download and install foobar2000 from filehippo.
2. Go to shoutcast.com and browse the different stations and genres. You can even search for a music or type by keyword. For example I searched for ’80s’ and ‘.977 The 80s Channel’ was top on the list.
3. Once you pick a station, right-click on the ‘Tune In!’ button and select ‘Copy Shortcut’ (Internet Explorer) or ‘Copy Link Location’ (Firefox).
4. Open foobar and go to ‘File’, then ‘Add Location’. You can also hit ‘control+u’ on your keyboard at the same time.
5. Delete anything in that text box, then right-click and hit ‘Paste’.
6. Sometimes foobar will create a list of several addresses of the same link for that station, just delete all but one of those links (it doesn’t matter which one you keep).
7. Double-click on that address in foobar to start the online radio stream. Once you click on it, it will display the station name instead of the address from then on.

You can add as many as you want and they are all free. I recommend any of the ‘.977′ stations for starters.

If you have a few minutes during the day in front of your computer, you have the ability to earn extra money by participating in online surveys. The surveys are quick and painless and I don’t get spammed like I thought I would. In fact, I have never received spam from any of the survey companies I signed up with. There are no commitments and signup is easy. I recommend the following sites that pay cash for completed surveys:

OpinionOutpost

MySurvey.com

surveysavvy

There are referral benefits offered with the above survey companies, so once you sign up from the above links, use your referral links to invite others.

1. Find your laptop or desktop computer and make sure you are wireless ready. This means an integrated wireless adapter for laptops or a wireless adapter like the Linksys WMP54G Wireless-G PCI Adapter for desktop computers.
2. Get you some high speed internets (DSL, cable, satellite, etc.).
3. If your internet service provider didn’t provide a wireless router, get the Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router.
4. Once you have the above items, connect your high speed internet connection’s network cable to the WAN or internet port on the back of your wireless router.
5. With a network cable, connect your computer to a LAN port (there are usually four of them) on the back of the wireless router and login to the router by following the instructions packaged with the router.
6. After you have logged-on to your router, find the wireless security settings where you: name your network, choose WPA security, and type in a password. Also password protect the router in the administration settings. These security settings keep others from accessing your wireless network.
7. Unplug your computer from the router, wait for Windows to detect your wireless network, and enter the password you chose earlier. If you have wireless built into your laptop, make sure the wireless switch is turned on, usually located on the front of the laptop.

Congratulations, you just setup a secured wireless network yourself. Best Buy’s Geek Squad charges $199 in labor plus equipment charges to setup the wireless network. You just did all that yourself in steps 4-7. Now that you saved that money, go do some Christmas shopping on your couch in your undies.

I pay all my bills online through US Bank’s free Bill pay feature. You can pay everything from Ameren bills, water bills, credit cards, and everyone else that comes calling every month. US Bank prints the check and physically sends it to the payee for free. You can set it up to pay all your bills automatically every week, 2 weeks, month, etc. If you have the means, I highly recommend signing up with your bank.

The Proctor and Gamble CEO does not give his profits to the church of satan. Liz Claiborne is not a satanist. All of Bill Clinton’s friends and acquaintances have NOT mysteriously died. Oliver North did not warn Congress about Osama back in the 80s. Mars is not going to be as big as the moon. This post does not contain a virus that will destroy your house and everything in it. Those coupons you received for Outback Steakhouse from Bill Gates are not real. Your cell phone will not be inundated with telemarketing calls 31 days from now. Most importantly, nothing bad will happen to you if you do not forward this post to 10 people.

As you have noticed above, I have included links to the proof that those hoaxes and myths are false. So, from now on, if you find yourself in a panic about the formaldehyde in those Magic Erasers you just bought (not true), go to snopes.com and verify the authenticity of that email you just forwarded to 73 of your closest friends and family members.

If you spread chain letters, please put the email address in the ‘Bcc:’ (blind carbon copy) section instead of the ‘To:’ section. This prevents all the people that read your chain letter from seeing everyone else’s email address.

I have spent countless hours researching and testing software programs. I have narrowed my research down to the following programs for Windows:

• PC Decrapifier (removes the pre-installed bloat on new PCs)
• Avast! (anti-virus)
• Windows Defender (anti-spyware)
• Malwarebytes (better anti-syware)
• CCleaner (clean temporary files, history, and cache;  program uninstaller;  registry cleaner; manage startup programs; don’t install the Yahoo! toolbar during the setup process)
• Firefox (web browser)
• Open Office (contains clones of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint)
• Audacity (audio editor)
• Foobar (audio player)
• Media Player Classic (installs with the next program below)
• K-Lite Codec Pack (essential codecs that lets you play any media file)
• Image Resizer (simple right-click on a picture program to resize images; not compatible with Vista)
• 7-zip file compression (use this instead of winzip)
• Soulseek (file-sharing program with NO spyware)
• uTorrent (torrent downloading program)
• Karen’s Relicator (file backup program)
• TweakUI (make safe tweaks to Windows)
• InfraRecorder (CD and DVD burning software)
• Everest (tells you all the information about your rig, e.g. RAM, video card, processor, etc.)
• Network Stumbler (detects and lists wireless networks in your vicinity)
• Eraser (permanently deletes files- use this because I can find files you emptied from your recycle bin years ago)

So, you don’t use Windows Messenger and you think you stopped it from starting up by unchecking that box in the Messenger options page (because you have found it impossible to uninstall it)… but you really didn’t. It is still running in the background. I have researched this for you and have a solution.

Click on start, then run. In the run box, copy and paste or type the following:

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

Hit OK and restart your computer. Congratulations, you have removed Windows Messenger.

1. Get high-speed internets or go to someone’s house/business that has high-speed internets.
2. Download and install a torrent file-sharing program. I use uTorrent.
3. Download and install a video codec pack using default installation settings. I use K-Lite codec pack. This is necessary because Windows by default will not play this compressed avi video format, usually DivX or XviD, that these high-quality videos are in.
4. Explore all the options, settings, and/or preferences in your torrent program. Remember or change where your downloaded files will be stored.
5. Go to a website that shares TV show video torrents and download a torrent file. I use tvtorrents.com. You can also go to other sites that I will not mention here. If your torrent program doesn’t automatically perk up when you download the torrent file, open the torrent directly from your torrent program.
6. Once the torrent file reaches 100% downloaded, share it (more specifically called seeding it) for a little while. Common etiquette is if you download a typical 350 meg show, let it seed for 350 megs.
7. Browse to and open the downloaded video with your favorite media player. I use the Media Player Classic program that was installed in step 3 with the codec pack. If the video doesn’t play or if you just hear audio, you screwed up step 3 and must redo step 3.

Super optional bonus step: Go to your local store that is not wal-mart and purchase a DVD player that also plays DivX and XviD. Here is one from K-Mart. Here is one from Overstock. Once you own this player, burn your video(s) to DVD and play it on your console TV much like the one pictured above. If you must go to wal-mart, here’s what you do: find something that you still own, don’t use, and still have the box for. Box it up and take it back to wal-mart. They might take it back even without the receipt. Just don’t lie about it.

Gmail is Google’s internet-based email. In my opinion, Gmail is better than Hotmail, Yahoo! mail, or your internet service provider’s email (Verizon, Comcast, AOL, etc.). Gmail is free, has tons of storage, and Outlook can be setup for Gmail (called POP access). None of the other email services offer these features for free.

Signup for Gmail here.

Settings for Gmail in Outlook or Outlook Express.