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As the price at the pump continues upwards, we’re all checking those gas station prices these days as we drive past, aren’t we? Next time, before hitting the road, head online and check some handy websites that will help you find the best gas prices along your route.

Sites like GasBuddy have been around for a long time but as gas prices reach unprecedented levels across the country, their network of localized gasoline pricing sites has now grown to 180, covering almost the entire country.

But GasBuddy isn’t alone. Microsoft’s MSN Auto site has beefed up its gasoline price reporting services, using credit card transaction data updated daily from 90,000 stations. Type in your zip code and you’ll find a return of the best – and worst – prices you’ll find near your location.

Another site to check: GasPriceWatch.com. It checks over 140,000 stations and also shows a map that gives you lots of details about how current the pricing is.

But wait… there’s more ideas.

“Get Gas Half Price” is the provocative name of an online book download (for $7.97) that is jam packed with ideas and tips on how you canr educe your fuel costs by as much as 50%.

Want to take more drastc action? Are you a do-it-yourselfer? Then try something really big, like how to convert your car to run on water and gasoline and double your mileage. This book offers to teach you just that. Does it work? I haven’t a clue. But it sure sounds intriguing.

Here’s some computer trivia you may need to know someday: The “Delete” key doesn’t always delete. A deleted computer file can usually be recovered, even if it seems to have been removed from your hard drive. If you’re getting rid of a computer or want to get rid of personal files you no longer need, we have some valuable advice for you.

From photos to letters and tax records, our computers have a lot of stuff we’d like to keep private. So if you’re getting rid of it, do more than hit the delete key. It really doesn’t delete at all. Your data is still on the hard drive and can be recovered by various firms, or even do-it-yourself software.

To really zap it… you need a program like Darik’s Boot and Nuke, a free download application that overwrites the hard drive multiple times, using randomly generated characters to take up all the space on the disk… thus removing the data by replacing it.

Paranoid and want stronger protection? For $39, try WipeDrive, it offers more features and works with thumb drives, USB drives and other portable media as well.

Another program you may want to consider is called WinClear. Windows and other software programs store history about the different activities that you have performed on your computer and on the Internet. This information is stored in the system areas of your hard disk and the built-in Windows functions like ‘Clear History’ offer little protection as they can only partially delete this data. Anyone can take a look at your history and find out what you have been doing on your computer, and this raises serious privacy concerns. Winclear is an Internet history eraser that protects your Internet privacy by cleaning up all tracks of your Internet and computer activity.

Then there’s this: Almost every action you make is recorded and can be easily retrieved by anyone, not just by a computer geek but by an average computer user such as your spouse, boss, friend, or anyone who has access to the PC you use.

For example, web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox can save every image and every website you open. Windows might save every login name and password you type. Media players often keep records of every movie and video clip you watch.

That’s where a program called Evidence Nuker comes into play. The people who make this program say your computer is as private as a diary left on a restaurant table for anyone to read, and thousands of people have been fired, divorced and even sent to prison over what was found on their PC.

You can download Evidence Nuker today and run a FREE scan that will show you a listing of deleted files, emails, chat transcripts, audio and video files, temporary internet files, image files (all formats), search histories, clipboard data, passwords, internet history, stored cookies and such. It then will let you erase it…. but you have to buy the program to do so.

Microsoft has a pretty good free offer going with its new Windows Live OneCare protection package for the PC. You can try the whole package for three months at no cost. OneCare provides anti-virus and anti-spyware filtering and screening, online ID protection, a firewall, printer sharing and multi-PC management features.

If you want to try Windows Live OneCare free for 90 days just download the free trial.

It’s springtime and time to slim down for summer. Watching what you eat and getting exercise is critical to get in swim suit shape and I’ve found some Websites that can help you plot your way to… well… a new you.

The idea is to write down everything. What you eat and what you burn in calories by working out, bicycling and running. The Fit Day site is a great place to do just that. It’s totally free, and all web based.

Set your weight loss goals, allot how many calories you can consume a day and then enter in your food and workouts. FitDay then keeps track of everything. A lot of people have lost a lot of weight and credit this site with giving them the motivation.

A similar and also very popular free site is The Daily Plate. Again, the idea is to keep track of what you eat and what you burn. Information is power. As long as you burn through physical activity more than you take in through food, you lose weight. And if you write down everything, you’ll know… there’s no room for excuses to NOT lose weight. the Daily Plate has a huge online database of foods with full nutritional information that it automatically totals for you.

And if you still need more help, a site called Shrink Yourself offers helpful online courses aimed at helping you to stop overeating. Some, which they charge for, are quite in depth and intense. But there is also a free four-day online course called Emotional Eating 101 you may want to check out.

Spend a lot of time surfing the Net? Now you can help others as you get smarter with the freerice.com site.

The idea is pretty simple: Learn a new word… help feed the world. It starts out slow, asking you the definition of a word. As you pick the correct one, the words get progressively harder. There are 55 levels of increasing difficulty. So far, since the site went online last fall, few have gone past level 48,

But with each correct answer, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
How so? Ads, that’s how. Advertisers attach banners at the bottom of the vocabulary screen. The money they pay the site pays for the rice. You can even see a video of the rice being distributed.

The site makes no money. It has just come up with a way to help feed the world… to date… about 47 tons of rice to 22 countries.

Now here’s a cool idea: A TV Silencer, mutes your TV when the phone rings. Actually, it also works with DVDs and stereos… as long as it has a remote control. You install a gizmo at the landline connection (it wont work with cell phones) hook it up to a small infra red emitter aimed in the direction of the television and, whenever the phone rings, it mutes your TV. Just like magic. Cost is $69.

Spam now makes up 80 percent of all email. Put another way, only two of 10 emails are good. Fighting back can be daunting but I have some suggestions that can ease the burden on your in-box.

Spam…it’s out of control. Guess how much junk mail has accumulated over a 30-day period with my PCMike e-mail address? Over 164,000. Now tI used an old e-mail address that has been heavily linked on the Web and I allowed the spam to accumulate to demonstrate just how bad it is.

Here are my top three suggestions on how you can fight back against spammers.

1)First, never unless absolutely necessary, write out your e-mail address on the Web. Spammers have harvesting programs that capture them.

2) If you do have to post it, don’t use the “@” sign. Spell out the word AT and D-O-T for the dot com part to trick those harvesters.

3) Finally use an anti spam program that has a Bayesian filter. Bayesian filters detect spam through smart analysis and the programs actually learn and gets better over time.

There are two Bayesian spm programs I recommend.

Spam Bully is the best tool to block the spam that I’ve tried for Windows and PC users, especially those using Outlook.. For Mac users, I like Spam Sieve. These programs are easy to set up and powerful tools that identify and trap the spam and get it down to a manageable amount.

Spam can never be eradicated but if you follow my suggestions, you’ll get it under control.

It’s springtime and time to do the proverbial spring cleaning. But don’t stop with the house and yard. Your computer can also use a good going over. A lot of junk can accumulate on the inside and on the hard drive of your PC.

Computers get real gunky. At least every year, it needs a good dusting.

Start with the fan. Compressed air from a can works, as does a vacuum.

And don’t forget the keyboard. Blow out the food crumbs that have piled up from those snacks you at while surfing the Net. Aerosol cleaning products applied to a clean rag and then rubbed on the grit removes the grime from the keys.

But the real PC spring cleaning challenge is inside.

First, get rid of the Adware and Spyware. Over a year all sorts of needless software can pile up, installed by websites to snoop on your privacy, deliver you unwanted ads and generally clog and clutter your computer. There are lots of programs that remove this. One I’ve had good results with is called No Adware. Two other programs I’ve used that also do the job well are Ad-Aware from Lavasoft and Spybot Search and Destroy. If you are like most users on the Internet, chances are you are probably infected with junkware. Most of the adware removal tools let you do a free scan to see what’s there, then, if you want help in removing it, they charge.

One more thing needs to be cleaned on Windows machines. It’s the Windows registry. The Windows Registry is a big database with the complete inventory of every program that sits on your PC.The more software and hardware you install and uninstall, the more your Registry fills up.

A lot of software doesn’t clean up after itself, and leaves behind old and obsolete Registry entries. This can slow down your machine. The more your Registry fills with this junk, the slower your PC gets and the more often you’ll have system crashes. Error Nuker is one of many special utility programs that will scan the Windows Registry on your machine to identify errors and ways to optimize the performance. A free registry cleaning utility program called Eusing has a lot of fans, too.

There are many, many tools you can get online that do these important tasks besides the ones I mentioned. Do a search for registry cleaners or adware removal to find more. Most offer free trial versions. And before you run any tool that removes anything, make a backup of any file that you are going to change. That way, if something goes wrong, you can easily restore your files and start over.

Get cleaning, everyone.

What would happen if your computer was stolen, or you lost everything on your hard drive? Scary thought, right? That’s why it is important to back up your data. Do you? If not, thanks to a new gizmo from Apple, it’s never been easier to be prepared.
Our digital files are valuable beyond words. Some of us have thousands of photos on our hard drives, even more songs or TV and movie clips. Then there are our documents, letters and financial info.

I don’t need to tell you how important it is to back up.

But until Apple’s Time Capsule came on the scene a few weeks ago, backing up our computer files was tedious. Time Capsule automatically backs up everything, every hour, every day so you no longer have to worry about losing your digital life. A 500 GB version costs $299. A 1 terabyte version is $499.

Working with a program called Time Machine that comes standard on Mac’s latest Leopard operating system, Time Capsule does all the backing up seamlessly. But it does more than that.

Time Capsule is also a superfast WiFi base station, operating in the new 802.11n format which just about doubles the range of older WiFi stations. You can also plug a printer into the back of Time Capsule and wirelessly print from anywhere in the house.

This is the most advanced backup device and WiFi station I have ever seen. I have my main PC and two laptops backed up on it and feel so secure about it, I’m almost smug.

The system works best with Macs.

For PCs, meanwhile, there are some new tols that can help WIndows machines be more efficient, too.

Did you know that there is now a 50% chance of being infected by an internet worm within just 12 minutes of being online using an unprotected, unpatched Windows PC? This is according to Sophos, one of the big anti-virus companies. That’s how bad it has become. Even the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness team says “the average time-to-exploitation … for an unprotected computer is measured in minutes.”

An outfit known as MacroVirus is offering free scans of your computer to see whether you’ve been hit. clean and repair your entire system and get it back to it’s original performance. MacroVirus not only detects and removes Viruses, but also Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms and a host of other dangerous parasites that detererate computer performance and invade your privacy.

A recent study found that over 90% of computers are infected by some type of malware picked up from internet usage. MacroVirus claims to protect against ALL of them.

The Internet is a huge buzz machine, a place where gossip, trends, fashion and the latest news is analyzed, shaped and spread. And a lot of that buzz originates in online communities… chat rooms and forums.

There’s a brand new tool that does to online forums what Google does for Web pages.

It’s called Twing… and what it does is search the postings in forums and discussion groups. A lot of the content found in these active online communities is missed or not indexed by the traditional search engines like Google and Yahoo and the like.

Twing concentrates on them and returns listings from dozens of categories and thousands of online forums. Type in your phrase and you can search by posts, topics or forum.

This is a great way to see what online users are saying, an instant reality check on hot topics or subjects you want information on from real people. The site is free to use, though if you register – also free – you can save your favorite searches and forums.

The online video trend shows no signs of letting up with a brand-new site opening this week that sets a new standard for the video-on-demand movement with scores of old and not-so-old TV shows and movies that can be watched online for free.

The Hulu site opened for the public Wednesday and of all the online sites that are now showing video, this is the best I’ve seen. I got so hooked reviewing it Wednesday afternoon that I watched a half-dozen “Saturday Night Live” skits I’ve missed lately, plus a few of the old favorites from vintage “SNL” shows, a “Simpsons” episode and, for 1:46 minutes, the powerful thriller “The Usual Suspects.”

The site is jointly owned by the News Corp. (Fox TV) and NBC Universal (NBC) and is filled with TV clips and full episodes from popular, currently running NBC and Fox shows, such as “Arrested Development,” “Prison Break” and “Heroes.” There’s talk that CBS may join the partnership in future days. ABC is doubtful as it seems to be going its own Disney way.

Besides the current shows, there are plenty of classic programs and reruns, too, like “Adam 12,” ” Hill Street Blues” and “Starsky and Hutch.” You’ll also find sporting events, music videos and what Hulu says will be a growing list of fairly recent full-length movies. To watch the movies, you need to sign up for a free account. But all the viewing is totally free.

What’s the catch?

You have to watch commercials that sandwich around the shows you choose to watch. I encountered one at the beginning of everything I watched. The commercial that ran before “The Usual Suspects” was the 1:45 trailer for the new “Leatherheads” movie starring George Clooney. After that, the movie ran, uninterrupted by any other ads. At other times, when I clicked on a category or browsed a genre, a short commercial would also play, but nothing anywhere near as obnoxious as the 20 minutes of ads that air during a typical prime-time show during its regular broadcast time on TV.

On Hulu, you watch the videos at your computer online and they stream pretty clean. Obviously, you need a broadband cable or DSL connection. You wouldn’t want to try this with dial-up.

But watched on my Comcast home cable connection, I noticed barely a trace of the herky-jerky, stuttering video glitches that other streaming sites struggle with. The programs and movies played almost as if I was playing back a DVD. The quality of the images and sound was excellent. Now I don’t know if that will change when a lot of people discover the site and it starts playing a lot of simultaneous streams, but Wednesday, it was about as flawless of a streaming experience that I have ever had watching online video.

You can watch the shows and movies in a box on the Hulu Web page or, by clicking a button, full screen. You can also pause it (which I did several times to take phone calls). If you want to see a scene over again, just drag the player marker on the control window back a bit.

I’m very impressed with Hulu. There are lots of TV shows and movies in lots of different venues. It’s only going to get better. I think this is going to be hugely popular and a site we’ll look back on as advancing online entertainment to new mainstream levels.

The one down side is the programs have to be watched “live” on Hulu. You can’t download them.

There are, however, sites that do let you download TV shows. Here’s one. It’s a membership site but it has TV shows, movies, music and thousands of files you can download right to your computer. It works with Macs and PCs, too.

eBay and online auction sites have changed the way America shops. But of all the copycat auction sites out there, I’ve found an inauction site with a twist. This one scours police property rooms around the country and sells off unwanted or unclaimed property that somehow ended up in police hands.

The site is www.PropertyRoom.com and it’s bursting at the virtual seams with pretty cool stuff at very hot prices. In design, it looks and works like similar online auction sites. Browse the categories and place your bids.

But right away, you notice some pretty good buys…. Check out power tools …jewelry… electronics… computers… automotive stuff, like car stereos, GPS receivers and speakers.

The site has arrangements with police property rooms across the country, moves out the unclaimed or forfeited stuff to its own warehouses and then cuts the cops in on a part of the proceeds.

The site says it sells about 98% of everything it lists… and should the rightful owner find his stolen stuff online, it offers a service called “Steal it Back” that returns the items. All the owner has to do is provide the serial number.

Then…. there are other sites that specialize in auctions of other items.

For example, very month across the United States, thousands of vehicles are seized by different Government agencies (IRS, DEA, FBI) & Police departments and auctioned off to the public. Due to certain laws these vehicles are listed and sold at up to 95% OFF their original value and auctions many times start at $100. This site lists 3,000+ updated auctions nationwide, with listings in every state.

Here’s another government auction site, this one of just about every type of surplus, seized, and abandoned property you could imagine. Once you join this site, they give you access to our unparalleled database of over 2,000 federal, state, and local government agency auctions in your state and on the Internet.

Finally, don’t forget good old eBay. Here’s a guide on how to make and save money on eBay. The site claims 95%of eBay sellers are wasting money because they do not know the answers to some simple questions. This causes expensive mistakes. You can take the test and see what you can do on eBay.