Checking out books to the Kindle App from the Phoenix Public Library

Walk into a Public Library, and get a Library card, and register it with your name.
Get an Amazon.com account.
Download the Kindle App to your device (or just get a Kindle).
To see a listing of Phoenix Public Library eBooks that are currently available, go to:

http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/controller.jsp?browse=true&Ns=Availability&N=6594+6606

After selecting a book, choose the "Kindle Option" to add to book bag, then "Checkout".

When prompted, use your Phoenix Library Card# and Last Name

It will then take you to Amazon, where you can select the Kindle from the drop down list on the right you want it sent to ("iPhone" I assume) then login with amazon user/pass

Then open the kindle app on the iPhone. It should take a minute to sync, then the title should show up at the top.

After 14 days, it deletes itself.

Fixing a failing hard drive from 2 states away

The "trick" in this story, is that the user had two hard drives in their computer and the second hard drive was large enough to accept all the system/data from the first hard drive.

I get a call from a relative of mine "I need the Helpdesk, my computer is giving me an error saying that my hard drive is in imminent failure. Also, when I turned it on there was a black screen that in white letters said that the S M A R T system detected a failing hard drive."

For most users, this means a trip to the computer store to buy a new hard drive, and pay for a technician to install the OS and copy the data over, and unless you are friends/family, that's what I'd recommend you do as well.

So I fire up TeamViewer8 http://www.teamviewer.com/ (free for personal use), which allows me to remote into his machine, and see the error message he is getting; and click around to further check out the situation.

(X) Microsoft Windows
(X) Windows detected a hard disk problem
Back up your files immediately to prevent information loss, and then contact the computer manufacturer to determine if you need to repiar or replace the disk.
(Clicking "Details" indicates it's the Disk Name "HDS722020ALA330" and Volume C:\ D:\

He lets me know that when he turned on his computer that day, it also had a black screen with white text say that "SMART" was reporting the drive was bad and prompting him to either enter setup or continue.

Just to make sure (in hind site, I probably should have skipped this step) I download and installed HD Tune http://www.hdtune.com/ (free trial), ran an Error Scan and several sectors were returned as "Damaged". I also went to the HP website to check if the machine was in warranty, it had expired 3 months prior.

Ain't that always the way?

Since I had TeamViewer8; and was able to see what was going on with his computer and poke and prod it myself, I picked up on the fact that he had two hard drives, which is somewhat unusual in a home system, and honestly if we had only been speaking on the phone; I wouldn't have though to ask and check for this.

The first drive was 1 partition at 160 gigs of data and two more HP recovery partitions totalling less than 175 gigs. The second drive said "No files" and listed itself as 400 gigabytes free.

I had just heard the guys on the "DogHouse Systems" podcast http://www.doghousesystems.com/ Episode64 talk about an Acronis product being able to clone a system disk by rebooting the computer and entering a special boot mode and doing the boot automatically there.

So on my computer, I go to Acronis http://www.acronis.com/ and see that they are selling "True Image 2013" and giving away a copy of "Disk Director 11" with purchase; assuming True Image will do what I need, I purchase it, then skim the user guides about disk cloning and notice that the Disk Director is really more what fits this situation.

Acronis gives you a link to download Disk Director after purchase, so I email that to my relative, and open the email on their computer; download the program, install it; then tell Disk Director to clone drive 1, onto drive 2; resize, and "Copy NT Signature" (to make it bootable), "turn off computer when done". Then I "commit" the actions, and it prompts to reboot the computer, which I do, and of course TeamViewer8 has to shut down as well.

The relative did have to click past the "S M A R T" error message that comes on before the computer boots. And sure enough, he reported that the special boot mode was entered, and it took most of the night to copy the data (probably because the drive was damaged in some places).

I send the relative a text message saying to call me tomorrow before turning the computer, so we can go into the BIOS and turn off drive 1 so the computer will boot from driver 2.

The next day I get a text message saying that the error is still coming up. I know this is because we haven't turned off drive 1 in the BIOS, but I go ahead and fire up TeamViewer8 again and verify that the copy went through to the other hard drive.

So then I fire up Apple's FaceTime for a phone call, and have him reboot the computer and enter the BIOS by pressing a button as the computer booted up (F10 as I recall for an HP E-490t model) and then I visually walked him through turning of drive 1 in the BIOS. A "Save and Exit" later, and we were back in what looked identical to his previous setup, but now without an error message about a drive failing.

Amazing times we live in.

Is there a device that I could remote into to use a computer (move the mouse, type into it, see what's being displayed), even in the BIOS? If so, please comment and depending on how much it costs, I'll buy it and install it on every relatives computer. I'll pay more if it will let me remotely cut the power to force a reboot of a frozen system. Then I'll get two so in case one freezes, I can reboot the other one :-)

Generic "online scam roundup" for 2013

A friend of mine asked if online bill pay was safe, or if this meant that once he pays bills online his financial information will get leaked. The answer is online bill pay is as safe as your bank is, so if you already trust your bank, you should be fine. I figured I would drop him a few more tips for stuff to watch out for online, and figured I could share them with "you" as well.

Email:

If you bank offers online bill pay, the danger is 0. All "online bill pay" does is you tell your bank the name of the company you want to pay, and your account number with them; if it's a big enough company, the bank will have their info already; if it's a small enough company, the bank will ask you to what address you would normally send the check and the name it would be sent to.




Then when you want to pay someone, you login to your banks website and just check the box for that company and how much you want to pay; if it's one of those big companies the bank just does all the "footwork" as if you had mailed in a personal check; if it's a small company (or even a person, I've sent my brother money this way), they will print a paper check and mail it to the address; then the person you paid will take that paper check and deposit it with their bank to get the money.



Your browser (the piece of software you use to browse web pages, Internet Explorer, or Firefox, or Chrome) does not have the information of "name / bank account number / billing address" so it won't automatically turn it over to a "bad" website.



Common online scams:



You aren't buying from xyz.com; you are buying from a seller on xyz.com, and they are the ones that screw you.



If you go to Walmart.com and buy a DVD player, Walmart isn't going to charge your credit card and send you a box of bricks and say they sent you a DVD player. They have to much to lose to just scam everyone that does business with them. But if you are on a site like ebay.com / craigslist.com and you buy an item that is being sold by "A. Nonymous" and they send you a box of bricks; you can try going after him but they will have cut all ties, and tomorrow will be selling again as "B. Nonymous". Even buying from a small companies website will usually work out just fine; the only thing I would caution you is "if it looks to good to be true it probably is" and if the transaction involves more than 'heres my money and address" then I wouldn't trust it.



A friend of mine goes online and finds some camera shop offering a CRAZY deal on a well known camera model. She pays for express shipping to make sure it will get to my sister in time.



A day later, a "pushy man" calls the house and tries to up-sell my mom. Saying that she really needs to buy a case for the camera, and extra batteries, and doesn't she want an additional lens so she can switch to far off shots. She agrees to some of it, but not all.



A day later (and remember, we wanted this shipped express), the "pushy man" calls back and says he can ship it out that day, but only if she will go to "random camera store review website dot com" and leave a positive review of this online camera store; once it's posted, she should email him the link, and he will have it shipped out overnight.



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Monthly Service



I'm not exactly sure if it's a "scam" to just forget something; but automatic withdrawals from your credit card/bank will continue until you stop it.



I've gotten surprised more than once by paying another 6 months for an online game I stopped playing a month ago; but at least I can login and still PLAY. I heard a guy mention on a podcast that he discovered he had been paying 30 dollars a month for 6 years to some random website that had since shut down and no longer offered pornography.



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Nigerian 419 scam; which is the Spanish Prisoner scam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner



"If you can send me a small amount of money, I can get access to a large amount of money and give you a percentage." Then you give some money, but now more money is needed, etc. Then someone says "hey give me some money and I can get the money you lost back". Basically: Never respond to strangers.

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Using your email/twitter/facebook as a zombie



The most common way this manifests itself is you get a message saying something compelling and a link; if you click the link you will either come to a page asking for your login/password to your email/twitter/facebook or a webpage that has some code written in it that can trick your browser into downloading some code to your computer; or fool twitter/facebook into letting someone else post for you.



Then suddenly everyone in your address book / friends list gets the same zombie link, or a link to buy herbal viagra, etc.



You avoid this best by not clicking links in messages without first asking yourself if you think it might be valid.



Common invalid emails that you should be suspicious of the links:



It comes from someone you know, yet the words around it are not typical of the way they would write.



The message seems inflammatory IE: "You look ridiculous in this picture" "Did you not know you were being filmed?" etc.



It comes from someone you do not know.



The message is unexpected.



An email from your bank saying "Click here to login and read this important information"



It might be easier to explain what IS a valid link. If you clicked "Forgot Password" on a webpage and you get an email with a link to click to reset the password, that's probably fine. Otherwise, if I get an email from my bank/credit card that wants me to click a link, I just go to my browser and type in citi.com and then login there.



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Using your computer as a zombie: Most often comes up when trying to view a video.



Because video software is still all over the map; it's possible you may have gotten to a website before that told you that you needed to install something before you could watch the video; you agree to install the software because you want to view the video. When you agreed to install the video player update, another small program was added to the computer that allows another person to use your computer for their own wants. This could turn out to be locking up your computer until you pay a "ransom" for it; or maybe using your computer and thousands of others to flood a website with traffic and bring it down.



*****



So what's a red blooded american supposed to do? Just be mindful that if the browser starts to ask you a question like "Do you want to speed up performance?" or "Do you want to update your video player?" You should go down to the taskbar along the bottom of the screen, right click the program and choose "Close" and try a different site. If it starts to ask even more questions, I would just restart the computer.

Changing Sticky Notes Font in Windows 7

Posted up on this site how best to change the font for the windows 7 sticky notes:

http://tinyempire.com/notes/changing-windows7-sticky-note-font.html

Sore Throat Remedy - Maple Syrup and Lemon

Take a whole lemon and squeeze all it's juice in the biggest coffee mug you have, pour in two tablespoons of REAL maple syrup, (not the fake stuff, the real stuff is just as easy to find, right beside the fake stuff and it tastes even better!) Then take your cayenne pepper and put two generous dashes in. Fill the rest of the mug with boiling water, sip and FEEL yourself immediately get better! Your sinuses will clear out, your head clears up, your throat calms down. I don't know why it works so well. It is also an excellent way to fight off becoming sick. Something about the maple syrup and lemon and pepper mixing to create some kind of magical reaction. Don't microwave it though, it kills whatever it is that's going on.
If you don't have all that the best thing is peppers, especially that cayenne. Jon has a real bad cold, so last night I made stone soup (basically beef broth with some potatoes, onions, and celery) I put  a bunch of cayenne pepper in it. So much so that I who am not sick could barely eat it, Jon lapped it up, I think because he could finally taste something, and today he feels great!!

Twitter "Groups" Workaround

Funny. I'd been watching the "when is twitter going to get groups" conversation for a long time, and turns out your the president. I'm emailing you this because I felt the other "answers" fell short and you might no longer be following the topic.

In Twitter Settings>Notices>@Replies you can select "@ replies to the people I'm following".
If we could have this be the default behavior for all new users, and encourage existing users to change to this setting, the following solution could work:

For most of these conferences there will already be an "official" twitter account, for instance @podcampaz

If I create a message and direct it to @podcampaz only people who also follow @podcampaz will have it show up in their feed. Of course if you went straight to my page, you will see the tweets, so it's not "private" and if you wanted to hear what was going on at PodCampAZ even if you weren't there you would subscribe to them.

(Props to @cycomer for the idea)

If you wanted, you could even make groups like @phoenix @arizona @phx @phxNightLife @phxWork @smith123Family @youtube @RT @OH @twitpic @WolfParadeFans @SpencerKrugFans @WorldOfWarcraftPlayers

Maybe this is an alternative to #

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I'll explain by example:
I follow PersonA and PersonB
I don't follow PersonC

Whenever PersonA or PersonB says: Hello World
I see it.

Whenever PersonA @ messages PersonB like: @PersonB I like cupcakes
I see it, because I also follow PersonB

Whenever PersonA @ messages PersonC: @PersonC I'll be in your town next week
I don't see it, because I don't follow PersonC

Now if I go to twitter.com/PersonA I can read all of the messages, but I won't have the @PersonC messages in my feed.

So as an example, I go to @phx2600 meetings, and I live in @cityofchandler. Assuming everyone who lives in Chandler follows @cityofchandler, and everyone who goes to the local 2600 meetings follows @phx2600, AND has @ replies to people they don't follow turned off, I could say:
@phx2600 meeting is tonight. I'm going to bring a box of junk and give away whatever I have, if you are late bring donuts.
and then right after that say:
@cityofchandler there is a broken water main at Kyrene and 56th st, but 58th is packed to, so if you are headed that way, take 60th st

If you only follow @phx2600, you only get the first message.
If you only follow @cityofchandler, you only get the second message.
If you follow both, you get both.
And if you follow neither, (like my dad in another state), you don't see either message.

And everyone sees my: w00t, I just got paid today! Now who do I owe money to?

How can I fix my problems?

"The worst thing that can happen is that, for people to get up everyday and wait for somebody else to make it right for them" -Rush Limbaugh 2007-07-27