Selling my wife's HP dual core AMD X2 laptop

Hello folks,

I'm selling my wife's HP dv2125nr AMD Turion Dual Core laptop on ebay.

It's tricked out with 1.5 gbs of RAM, 120gb hard drive space with Windows XP (media center edition).

It has a remote control, and even includes Windows Vista Upgrade CDs if you choose to upgrade.

I'm including the retail CD's of MS Office XP 2002 as well.

Best of all, it comes with accidental warranty coverage from Best Buy, good until 12/2009. That means anything happens to it, and Best Buy will take care of you.

It's a great laptop for average joes, but I guess not my wife. She missed her old Thinkpad and she was used to it, so I just bought her another one.

Play almost every media file with VLC

I'm sure you've experienced this before.

Your good friend or family member has sent you a video they took w/ their digital camera as an attachment, but when you tried to open it, you couldn't play it because your default Windows Media Player didn't recognize it.

Or maybe you came across a funny video on the 'net that wasn't a streaming video like youtube, so you had to download it, but when you tried to open, Windows media player didn't recognize that either.

I used to hate that.

But now I just use the free VLC media player. It plays virtually every kind of media type thrown your way: avi, mov, mpeg, mp3, ogg, and etc.

You don't need to know all those suffixes. Just open it with VLC and you'll be fine.

Download VLC media player

Save your Money - Get Free Antivirus

If you have a PC with any kind of Windows on it, the fact of the matter is, you're very prone to viruses, especially if you're the type to download a lot of things, or just simply unaware of the what to watch out for.

Viruses are destructive, and can destroy your files, or even render your computer inoperative. You can nerd out here for more details at Wikipedia.

However, don't worry too much like a mom of an acquantance I have, who told him to be careful not to get sick by catching a virus - I heard they spread through computers now.

In order to be 'immunized' from such destructive viruses, you must have anti-virus software. Companies like Norton and McAfee make great software that will keep you secure, but you have to purchase them every year and renew for about $30 to $50 on the average, depending on the suite of software you're buying from them.

I used to use Norton, until I found out that I didn't have to!

There are two great companies out there that do a great job in doing the same thing in fighting viruses, but are totally free.

1. Avast Antivirus - I like Avast, and currently use it for my PC's at home. It's trouble free, and even has a robotic voice that tells you, "virus database has been updated"whenever it does its autoupdate of the latest virus definitions to be aware of. I have had zero viruses since I've installed it.

But you must sign up with your email, and they'll email you a license key to enter to activate it. But that's normal for any software these days. In order to activate it, just copy the license key from the email and then right click on the blue circle with the 'a' in your system tray (that area on your computer on the lower right).

Then click on 'about Avast' and then click on the 'license key' button.

When your year is up, it will ask you to renew, and you just do the same thing, for FREE!

2. AVG Antivirus - I've used them successfully in the past, but I have a few caveats against them.

• It doesn't seem to auto update the virus definitions all the time. I don't know why. You have to manually do it often.


• Sometimes, after an update, you have to reboot the computer. I don't recall ever having to do that with Avast.


• Each year, they try to get you to upgrade to the professional version, which you have to pay for, Avast does not do that. Last time, they had a version upgrade (sometime last year, don't recall the version#), it was really hard to find the free upgrade software. It tried to 'trick' you into upgrading to the professional version.


• Small point, but overall, the software don't look as modern and professional as Avast.

Anyways, both are in the end effective, but I recommend Avast.

Lastly, in order to overall, just avoid viruses altogether, just follow these simple tips:

1. Don't download software from any site other than trusted sites. This is not an extensive list, but here they are: http://www.download.com/, http://www.snapfiles.com/, http://www.tucows.com/, http://www.sourceforge.net/. You can also check out http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ for free daily giveaways of selected PC software for free.


2. Don't download attachments from emails of people who don't know.


3. Don't visit inappropriate sites


4. Don't download stuff from peer to peer software like emule. Often, people might think that they are downloading that free movie or song or software, but some can have viruses put there with malicious intent. Plus, this is illegal and you risk lawsuit for yourself. Just don't go there.

Pinger makes group voicemail messaging easy

If you’ve ever tried to send a voicemail to various people at once (you know, that announcement that you'll be late, etc.), you know how much of a headache it is.

You have to go through all those complex options in your voicemail setup for "group messaging", but after you’ve done all that, you realize, “uh oh, I can’t add anyone outside of my carrier!”

www.pinger.com is the way to go.

It’s free, easy to setup, and you can add a bunch of people during the setup. Also, you don’t have to all be on the same carrier.

You can send group voicemails to everyone, and this is often better than group text messaging, because you won't have to worry about the character limitations on texting.

Windows: Create a new folder at the touch of a button!

There are usually hotkeys for everything in windows, except this one crucial one - create a new folder in windows explorer.

But now you can, with bxnewfolder.

All you have to do after install is to close and restart windows explorer, then press the F12 button to create a new folder.

Site says it should work for every Windows from 98 to XP - but let us know if it works with Vista.