I am familiar with Google’s tradition of creating short-term logos or “doodles” for various events and holidays, so at first I didn’t pay much thought to why Google’s logo was now displayed as a PAC-MAN game board. That is, until I heard the game’s iconic 80’s arcade style theme music start to play and the “Ghosts” on it started moving!

A click or two on the logo proved that there was an actual functioning game of PAC-MAN going on inside of Google’s logo (arrow keys also work too).  Simply press the “Insert Coin” button or just wait for a few seconds after the page loads to start playing!

After some peaking under the hood, I found out what the occasion was. Written in the pages source code was the term “PAC-MAN’s 30th Birthday! Doodle with PAC-MAN™ & ©1980 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc”.

I think this may be the first playable Google logo that I have ever seen. And according to the official Google blog, this game will continue for the next 48 hours…

QUOTE: “because it’s too cool to keep for just one day“

We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms. PAC-MAN joins the party and you can play together with someone else (PAC-MAN is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms. PAC-MAN using the WASD keys).

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A notebook or netbook gives many people the independence that has become a necessity in life: You can work outside of the office, watch a DVD on the plane, send e-mails to friends from the coffee shop; but the limited battery time often cuts the fun short, even though many manufacturers promise the batteries will last much longer. In this article, I will show you how to noticeably extend the battery life of your laptop, resolve incorrect PC settings and teach Windows how to save on some energy.

The following general tips help gain you valuable time, whether it’s for working on the move or enjoying your time off. Quick changes for long-lasting battery operation:

• #1 Reduce your Screen Brightness
  Your laptop screen eats up power relentlessly. Dim the brightness of your screen using the function keys on your notebook to greatly reduce battery consumption.  I can not stress this enough, the brightness of your screen is by far the #1 power drain.
• #2 Remove or Turn Off Unnecessary Devices
  Unplug USB sticks or external drives from your notebook in order to extend your battery life, and only turn on energy-zapping devices such as WiFi receivers, network connections, webcams, and DVD drives when you actually need them. At other times, you can turn them off using the function keys, the Windows device manager, or special energy-saving programs.
• #3 Use “Max Battery” Mode
  Reduce your computer’s power consumption by clicking on the little battery icon on the task bar and then selecting “Max Battery” mode. Although this does slightly reduce processor and graphics performance, your battery will last significantly longer.  Depending on what you mainly use your laptop for, this option may not be fore some people.

One of the energy saving programs that can also save you on some battery life is TuneUp Utilities.  I have personally used their product since 2004 and have come to love many, if not all, of the handy utilities that are bundled in the software.

Unnecessary background programs and the stylish glass-look interface on Vista® and Windows 7® suck the battery dry also. A quick tip for those that just want a set-it-and-forget-it solution is to just use TuneUp Utilities. The Turbo Mode option in this optimization software not only switches off unnecessary hardware, but also deactivates battery-draining Windows functions such as defragmentation, Windows indexing and searching for Windows updates. You can activate Turbo Mode simply by clicking once on the TuneUp Utilities start page.

The people over at TuneUp carried out a test on two notebooks configured identically to see the real world benefits of Turbo Mode.  They took two laptops (1.86 GHz Core 2 Duo, Windows 7®) and, with Turbo Mode switched on, the battery lasted a whole 30 minutes more!

Note: If your primary concern is with your battery life, you should not activate the “Maximum Performance” function. Click on the “Wrench Icon” in the right-hand corner, near the Turbo Mode button, and then on the “Next” button until you see the “Optimize performance without considering energy consumption” checkbox. Un-check this option to deactivate.

Summary:

Any notebook or netbook can run for longer with simple energy-saving tips for Windows and the power-saving Turbo Mode from TuneUp Utilities. It’s surprising to know that in some of their tests, they were even able to increased battery performance from an initial 1 hour 45 minutes to an impressive 3 hours 50 minutes, more than doubling battery life, Wow! Can your notebook match that? (* of course, your mileage may vary based on models and configuration)

Keep your PC in shape for the long term: Buy TuneUp Utilities 2010 Now!

Would you like to try before you buy? No problem! They also offer a trial version. See for yourself how impressive this software really is and download a free 30-day trial of TuneUp Utilities.

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Yesterday, Zillow announced a major enhancement to their website - the addition of Rentals on the Zillow.com site! With the addition of Rental listings and search, Zillow is trying to give their users another tool to help them throughout their decision making process.

After months of development, we are excited to have the ability for people to post and search for Rentals. We’ve created an innovative way to find these Rentals on the site with the ability to search by “Monthly Payment”. This will allow users to simultaneously search homes for sale and for rent based on a monthly payment they can afford.

Zillow does not offer brokers any way to automatically feed rentals yet like they do for residential homes for sale.  Although, Zillow does claim that “the ability to take Rental listings via a feed is high on the to-do list and you’ll hear news about it early 2010.”

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Trulia has updated it’s mobile services to include an updated iPhone app and also a mobile website that can be accessed from any smart phone or browser.

Download the iPhone App

Visit the Mobile Website

Now you can get more real estate data on your mobile phone with Trulia’s new mobile website and updated iPhone app! Find homes for sale on-the-go, get detailed property information, contact an agent and more! Plus, with Trulia’s mobile website, you can view local market data, ask questions in our Trulia Voices community and view your saved homes. If you’re an iPhone user, download the free app and check out new features like moveable maps and big photo slideshows!

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Windows is corrupt and/or system crashes to the point where a format is, in fact, required.  Owner still has restore discs and driver discs, and has provided them.  Owner has also provided discs for Office 2007 (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.)

Solution:

• Backup & Restore of personal files
  • (Geek Squad Price: $100,  My Price: $60)
• Diagnostic on hard drive
  • (Geek Squad Price: $70,  My Price: $20)
• Clean install of Windows
  • (Geek Squad Price: $130,  My Price: $40)
• Install of Office Suite programs & FREE Anti-virus
  • (Geek Squad Price: $40,  My Price: FREE)

Final Cost

Geek Squad: $340,  Me: $120   (A savings of $220!)

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I have used Outlook to do this very same thing for more than a decade now, but the downside was that Outlook is only located on a single computer.  If I didn’t have my laptop with me, I was lost.  I tried accessing my work email using a smart phone, but then I had copies on one account, and copies on my laptop in Outlook, always trying to remember which device I used to respond to which email…  It was only making matters worse.  That is, until Gmail rolled out their new POP3 import features and Gmail app for my Blackberry.  Wow, what a lifesaver!

Frequently Asked Questions…

• Why is this better than regular POP3 Outlook? Because Gmail is on the internet, no matter where in the world you are.  You do not need to lug around a laptop to access everything in a central location.
• Why is this better than using IMAP in Outlook? Using the IMAP feature in Outlook still leaves a copy of your email on the original server(s).  This can be considered a benefit since you will still be able to access your email even without Outlook…  Although, if you have a quota or space limit on your work email that is lower than Gmail’s impressive 7+ Gigs, you will not be able to hold on to as much of it.
• Why is this better than email forwarding? Simply forwarding all your other email accounts to your Gmail address does not allow you full control of your email.  It becomes difficult to sort and manage which emails came in through what account, and does not allow you to send email from any address other than the main one. It also creates issues with some spam filtering services since you will be forwarding all your spam as well as your legit email, possibly flagging you (or your mail server) as a possible spammer.
• How does Gmail make life easier with smart phones? Gmail has a mobile app for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia S60, and Windows mobile. Using this mobile app will let you see the exact same thing on your phone that you see on the Gmail website.  If you read an email on your phone, it shows up as “read” on the Gmail website as well.  If you send an email on your phone, it also shows up in your sent folder on the Gmail website.

Becoming Familiar with the Gmail Layout…

Gmail is a little different than other email systems. Take a look at the screenshot below to familiarize yourself with the layout, and some of the features.

• Gmail groups related emails together…  So if you received an email, and then responded to it, those two emails will show up in the same line together with a number (2). If the person then responds back, it will show a (3) since there are now 3 emails relating to the same subject, etc, etc…
• Another big change is that Gmail does not use “Folders”, it uses Labels…  Basically all your emails are always located in the same folder, there are never any “sub-folders”. Once you get used to this way of organization, it becomes very useful since each email can now have more than one color coded label attached to it. You can then select the label you want to view on the left menu and Gmail will show you all messages that have that label applied to them.
• You are able to write custom rules that can do almost anything to a message when it first arrives, like adding a “star” to all emails that are from certain people, or automatically deleting emails that have certain words in the subject line. The various options available here are extensive and may be covered in more detail in a later article.
• Gmail also uses little arrows “›” and “»” to give you a little info about who else the email was sent to. Gmail will display a single arrow ( › ) next to all messages sent to your address (not a mailing list), and a double arrow ( » ) next to all messages that were sent only to you. * I believe this feature can be turned on/off via settings.

Ok now. On with the walkthrough!

* This walkthrough assumes you have a Gmail account, and are logged in.
* You can click on the following images to enlarge them!

Step 1 - Click the Settings link at the top of Gmail

Now we are going to add our new email account, click the settings link at the very top of the page.

Step 2 - The “Accounts and Import” tab

Go to the Accounts and Import tab at the top and then click on Add POP3 email account at the bottom, a new window will pop up.  Just for an example, the screenshot below also shows a few accounts that I already have setup with this Gmail feature. Do not be concerned with the Send mail from another address button just yet, we will cover that later on.

Step 3 - Fill in the email address that you want to have Gmail check

Step 4 - Fill in your email account information

Gmail will try to automatically add the POP server that it “thinks” is the right one.  This however, may not always be correct.  Please check with your email service to find out what their settings are. For my example below I am showing settings for the Crossroads Realty email service.

POP server: server.xrdsportal.com, port: 110.

Also on this same screen, check the box next to Label incoming messages. Then click the drop-down menu and select New label… When a small box pops up, enter the name you would like to label all messages from this account with.

Step 5 - Select “Yes, I want to be able to send mail as”…

If this is the first time you are setting up a POP3 account, Gmail will now present you with the following window to also setup the SMTP account. This will enable you to send emails from either your Gmail address or this other address we are setting up right now.  If for some reason this is not the case, you must click on the Send mail from another address button that I mentioned back in Step 2.

Step 6 - Fill out your name as you want it to appear to people you email

Step 7 - Select the second option, “Send through … SMTP server”

These settings will differ depending on what email account you are setting up, for my example below I am showing settings for Crossroads Realty email.
SMTP server: server.xrdsportal.com, port: 587.

*** This setting is very important when using Gmail to check your work related emails.  People you send email to will see that the email originated from your actual work email address and not your Gmail one.  It is often considered very unprofessional to use a personal email address to conduct official business.

Step 8 - Verify your email account

At this step you will need to go access your email however you normally would for the account we are setting up.  Check your email by whatever means you used to and find the verification message sent from Google. Get the code that is in the email, and then come back to type the code into the box on this screen and then click the Verify button.

Step 9 - Set your reply option

At this point you should be back at the same screen we started from under the Accounts and Import tab.  Look for the setting shown below so that you can set Gmail to Reply from the same address the message was sent to. This makes sure that when you reply to a work email, Gmail will use your work email account to send the response back.

This setting is also very important when using Gmail to check your work email.

Step 10 - Your Done!

Congratulations, you are now setup to have Gmail fully manage your other email account! There are so many ways to customize the Gmail interface that I can not go into all of them in a single article.  I plan to write additional articles in the future to go over some of the many optional features in greater detail.

One last step that you may want to do for now is color code each label in your Gmail account.  You can do this simply by locating the label on the left side of the Gmail interface, click the small square next to the Label in Gmail’s menu as shown on the right, and pick the color you want.  All your emails from the account we just setup will now be color coded so that you can easily tell them from the regular Gmail emails.

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NewEgg.com lists the 22-inch monitor originally as $199.99, marked down to a typically low NewEgg price of $169.99.  When you add in the mail-in rebate of $50, this brings the total cost down to $119.99.

Each customer or business is allowed to claim the mail-in rebate for up to Ten monitors.

Of course if you live in California, New Jersey, or Tennessee, you will have to pay sales tax…  Although NewEgg does have this item marked for Free Shipping, a very nice bonus since monitors are usually pricey items to ship.

Here are some quick specs:

• 1680 x 1050 Max Resolution
• 1000:1 Contrast Ratio
• Tilt: –5° to +25°
• 5 ms Response Time
• Anti-Glare & Anti-Static
• 15-pin D-sub (Analog VGA)

This item is covered under NewEgg’s Monitor 30-Day Return Policy and also HP’s 3-year parts, 3-year labor, 3-year onsite limited warranty. Next business day exchange also available.

Product Link:
HP LE2201w Black 22″ 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor

This Rebate Offer Expires on Halloween - October 31st, 2009

Here’s the Rebate Form:
HP Smart Buy Business Monitor Mail-In Rebate

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The only times I have actually caught these infections BEFORE they were installed, they seemed to always come in an email claiming to be either a Windows Update, Internet Explorer Update, or a Flash Update.  Needless to say, these legit programs will NEVER send updates in a lowly email.

Although now, it seems these fake anti-virus programs are also spreading through various forms of scare tactics that lead users to misinformation websites encouraging the use of these programs.  My golden rule to you would be…  Be wary of any program that you have never heard of that asks you for money.

It was interesting to see on some of these infections that the fake anti-virus had completely re-written the Security Center in Windows. It had all the same fonts/icons/sizes that I almost got fooled for a second until I read the security recommendations under each section that directed the infected user to register their copy of the program in order to be protected.

Once infected, the cure is usually not too painful for the tech savvy of us.  Download the most recent version of Malwarebytes from a clean, uninfected computer.  Rename mbam-setup.exe to some new random name.  Copy over to the infected computer via CDR or USB drive.  Install, run, and remove the infections.

Good luck!

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Trulia, Inc. (www.trulia.com),

a U.S. residential real estate search engine, has revolutionized
online home search by offering home buyers the best place
to start their real estate search. Consumers can quickly and
easily access information on homes and review local real estate
guides and agent-buyer discussions to help them make better
decisions in the home-buying process.

Trulia Snapshot

5.0 million unique users per month
6.8 million visits per month
3.0 million homes for sale
75.0 million property records
40.0 million page views per month
12.0 minutes average time on site per visit
Trulia.com Monthly Traffic

Trulia users are a valuable, affluent audience.

35+ years old………………………………….66%
Married/committed relationship………………..74%
Have children…………………………………..41%
Currently a home owner………………………….. 60%

Annual Household income over $100K…….42%
Annual Household income over $200K……. 11%
Graduated from college…………………….81%
Have a graduate/professional degree……..36%
Actively employed…………………………..80%

• 72% plan to purchase home in the next year
• 53% plan to buy a home in the next 6 months
• 42% are pre-qualified for a mortgage

The following are statistics that I have compiled from our company website:
CrossroadsRealtyNJ.com

Since the day I started tracking it, the search engine giant Google is consistently #1 when is comes to bringing visitors to our website. Most of the other top website sources continue to fight for their place to this day.

In 2006, Realtor.com held the #2 spot as Yahoo climbed up behind them at #3. Then, right around April 2007, Yahoo passed Realtor.com and never even looked back. During late 2007, Realtor.com managed to hold onto the #3 spot, but then, Trulia was starting to become strong competition. For almost a full year after that, Realtor.com and Trulia.com would trade places fighting for the #3 spot, each taking a turn in the spotlight for short amounts of time. That is, until we redesigned our company website and added a few key features.

The battle between Realtor.com and Trulia for the #3 spot would have still continued on until today if it was not for the new features of our redesigned website. Our new website started syndicating all active listings to Trulia during July 2008. Since that time, the amount of visitors that Trulia brings us has far exceeded that of not only Realtor.com, but also Yahoo. And when looking at the numbers, it is hard to imagine a chance for recovery anytime soon.

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Today I received a domain notice in the postal mail marked “URGENT- OPEN IMMEDIATELY” with a return address of Processing Center, PO Box 4668 #82011, New York, NY 10163-4668.  This letter was NOT from the company that I registered any domain names with although it implies just that.  This is a scam and I want to warn anyone else out there that may be fooled by it.  If you own your own website name, or “Domain Name”, you may get this or a similar notice sent to you also.

Upon reading the notice letter, it resembles a typical invoice with options to pay for placement in major search engines based on a 2, 3, or 4 year term.  More specifically, the letter asks for bewteen $119 and $199 to be mailed in to them via check in order to avoid “cancellation” that would make it “difficult for your customers to locate you on the web”.  The letter also states that “You must complete your domain name search engine registration to guarantee your listing on the web”.   This is not true, this is nothing more than a marketing attempt that preys on peoples fear.

Nowhere on the letter does it mention their company name, logo, or a place where the name is actually registered.  It simply requests that checks are made payable to “Domain Registration”.

Attached to this post is a scanned copy of the actual letter I received if you want to take a closer look.

DomainNoticeScam.pdf

Do not send these people money for any reason!  If you have already sent in money to this company (or a similar scam company), I suggest you contact the BBB right away.

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