Tech Support Help Desk

Well, Halo 3 is out, and it’s breaking all the sales records.  Microsoft should be very pleased, although there have been reports of issues on their Xbox Live service, with so many new users flooding the online gaming servers.

If you have an opinion about Halo 3, let me hear it!  What do you think about this new addition to the Halo collection?

If you are anything like me, you’re always looking for ways to save money. This is especially true with online purchase, since you have to pay shipping fees. There are a lot of different place to find coupons online, but there’s a new site that looks very promising. The new site is CouponKathy.com, and the picture on the home page says it all: “Let me help you save money”.

There are quite a few categories that should appeal to the “techies” out there. Available right now she has coupon codes for Franklin Covey, GoDaddy, and Sharper Image. They even have Oriental Trading Coupon Codes. If you are involved in promotional widgets or goodie bags for kids, hand-outs, etc. - then you must check out Oriental Trading!

The process is pretty simple. Find the category you are interested in, click on the category to view the coupons. For example, I like Sharper Image. She currently has four coupon codes available as well as a banner ad. Three of the ads are for 50% off specific purchases, and the other ad is for various amounts from $10 to $100 off, depending on the amount of your purchase. These are excellent! Simply click on the ad to use the coupon and order. So next time you are shopping online and looking for that coupon code, stop by Coupon Kathy and check it out!

It seems that Starbucks want’s to get on board with the latest iTunes push.  They are getting ready to give out 50 million free iTunes songs between October 2nd and November 7th, 2007.  Only 37 titles are part of the promotion, but across the chain they will be giving away over 1.5 million tunes a day.  Customers will get a ’song of the day’ promo card with their purchases.  In addition, they will also get 2 free songs with the purchase of a Starbucks gift card.  With java, wifi, and now free iTunes, you can hang out at Starbucks all day!

Whether you’re looking for laptops or desktops, Dell offers a wide selection of computers for your needs. In fact, I recently helped a friend with her purchase of a Dell laptop. You can go online and configure your personal setup in accordance with what you will be using the computer system for. This will give you a quote which you can then use for a certain amount of time when you call in to order your desktop system.

The only issue we had with the Dell system she purchased was an issue with the DVD driver. For some reason, the initial install of the device driver was corrupted, and the performance appeared choppy with the sound out of sync. After maximizing performance and disabling all the fancy visual features on Vista to free up system memory, I finally gave in and called tech support. After holding for almost 45 minutes (and this was late at night , CST), I finally got someone who was able to help me troubleshoot and re-install the driver. After this, no more DVD issues!

Lots of people decide that they want to set up a wireless network in their homes.  Not many seem to consider wireless network security an issue.  This is unfortunate, as wireless network security should be on the top of their priority list when setting up such a network.  Unsecured networks can lead to people piggy-backing on your ISP service, which can impact your connection performance and speed.  In addition, having your network unsecured can allow others to “listen in”  on your network and can potentially compromise online accounts that you access during your session online.

So, when you or anyone you know is considering setting up a wireless network, do it right and use the security features of your equipment providers.  It’s not hard, and it can mean a much more enjoyable online experience down the road.

Getting a small business loan is often intimidating to business owners. Because of restrictions from the regular channels like banks and other financial institutions, the small business owner often doesn’t give it a second thought. Well, EZUnsecured.com is out to change that.

I know that before I shut down my local PC repair business, opening up a brick and mortar shop would have been nice, but it wasn’t practical because I didn’t have the funds. With a program like EZUnsecured.com has, it would have been a lot easier to apply. They only work on unsecured financing, but they do require a business to be in business for a minimum of two years.

If you’ve been looking for a way to keep your business going or to buy that equipment you’ve needed, consider checking out EZUnsecured.com. They just might be able to hook you up!

Many people (myself included) are finding that Google’s online applications are more and more a part of our everyday lives.  Finding entry into our lives initially through Gmail (Google’s version of free web mail service), I am now sucked in to the Google Toolbar in Firefox, Google Calendars, Google Documents (with great file sharing and collaboration features!), and even use Google’s Hot Trends (currently in their “lab” section) to look into Internet search patterns for marketing trends.

As far as replacing Microsoft Office anytime soon, I don’t think it will happen.  But for someone looking for a good set of services that they can access from anywhere, share important info with others,  it’s a great set of tools.  But don’t take my word for it .. check it out for yourself!

bOftentimes, businesses are the last ones in the marketplace to adopt new technology. The reason for this is simple: business owners don’t want to take chances with glitches in new technology when their business is on the line. First impressions can mean everything to a customer, and as a business owner you don’t want to mess that up. However, there is an emerging technology that has several years of experience under it’s belt, that is moving into the business segment, and seeing remarkable success in meeting business owner’s needs. What am I talking about? Well VoIP, of course!

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. It basically uses a high speed Internet connectin to route your phone calls instead of the traditional telephone company routers and lines. So what does this mean to you as a business owner? It means that you can usually save big bucks over traditional phone services, including some services you just can’t get from a traditional phone service provider. That’s where Packet8 comes in.

When you are looking for a small business phone system using VoIP, you need to check them out. Looking over their services, they have quite a few options to choose from. Whether you are just looking for that virtual office setup or wanting to use VoIP for an entire call center setup (and yes, that’s an option), they have the product for you. If I were setting up my small business on a VoIP plan, I would use the Unlimited Extention program. This is Packet8’s flagship extention service for virtual office and has quite a few bells and whistles, including a unique direct inbound dial (DID) telephone number, auto-attendant routing and switchboard viewing.

So when you decide it’s time for your small business to make the plunge into VoIP (and why not now?), be sure and check out Packet8.net.

Well, there’s been an update on the iPhone refund that was supposedly offered by Steve Jobs a few days ago.  While the price of the iPhone has dropped right at $200, the refund for those eager beaver early adopters will only be $100.  Hmmm … isn’t that nice of Apple to take you into consideration?  I’m sure you should be grateful that they are even doing that .

Let’s face it.  This was a face-saving attempt from Apple in the first place, especially seeing the initial reviews the iPhone has been getting.  Apple relies on those early die-hard adopters of new technology gadgets to put their product out in the market … but have they gone too far?  Will the really gutsy Apple fans still support this kind of fluid priced marketing?

Stay tuned, I have a feeling we’ll find out real soon …

Take a time out from worrying about tech support for a minute and head on over to Quiz Rocket and take the nerd quiz to find out if you qualify as a nerd. Yep, you heard me right! Quiz Rocket has 18 trivia quizzes and funny personality tests, with new quizzes added every week. These free trivia and personality quizzes are professionally written and fun to take. Users take the quiz, then see some offers from advertisers based on their quiz responses, and then they receive their score and badge. Quiz completion badges can be posted on any blog or MySpace page.

I’m heading over there momentarily, and I will let you know when I get back if I qualified or not (one would hope, since this is my tech blog … LOL)