Riding Shotgun with Adam

If you are looking for the podcast for our May 8 show, there isn't one. Adam forgot to hit record. Thanks to those who joined us live. It was a great show.

Grand Theft Auto IV was released this week and, as always happens when a version of GTA comes out, there has been a lot of discussion about video game violence and sexual content.

Without going into detail GTA is a game that features guns, civilians, cops, cars, prostitutes and an environment that allows you to act in any way you please. As you can imagine, most teen game players choose to use the game as a simulation for testing their skills at abiding the law.

I recently wrote about the wonders of Craislist both on HelpMeRick.com and in our free weekly email newsletter.

Someone posted a comment that I think needs to be addressed. There are many many scammers on Craigslist. However, they are stupid and easy to detect.

Here are a list of ways to detect a craigslist scammer.

1. The item is priced very low, but not too low. A $50 digital camera that retails for $5,000 is obviously a scam. Craigslist scammers typically would price such an item at $1,100 making it almost believable. Think about it, would anyone really sell an item for half as much as they could easily sell it for on eBay.

If you live in Denver, Portland or countless other larger cities then you likely have discovered Craigslist.

On the other hand, if you are in a smaller area or suburb, Craigslist is a secret that you should know about.

Craigslist is an online classified ads site that anyone can post to for free. There are few rules so you must be careful, but in general Craigslist is more fun than any print classifieds because it is in real time. No waiting for it to hit the stands.

Most newspapers and print classifieds publishers don't want you to know about Craigslist because it tends to take away business.

As often as once per day I recommend to someone that they invest in a USB flash drive for backup of regular files. The most common response I get back is, "I have one, I just don't know how to use it."

Here's how to do it. Keep in mind that USB flash drives do not work well with Windows 98 so these instructions are for Windows XP and up.

1. Open My Computer and make a note (mental or otherwise) what letters appear next to the drives. You should see C:, D: etc. Chances are that the flash drive will occupy the next available letter, but keep My Computer open just to be sure.

Organizing your digital photos is so important. Too often I see people who have major computer problems and think that everything is backed up only to find that their digital photos were so spread out on their computer that the only had a portion of them backed up.

Many people simply copy their digital photos onto their computer wherever a given piece of software puts them and they have no idea where that is. These notes will help you setup a system for managing your digital photos so they will be easy to find and backup even without programs like Picasa.

Here are a few links that will help you:

Rick Castellini's file management PowerPoint presentation

We love Cloudmark Desktop. It is the best spam filter on the planet and that has been proved by very complicated scientific tests.

The only problem with Cloudmark Desktop is that it only works in Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird. Until now, Vista users who wanted to benefit from the powerful filtering of Cloudmark had to switch their email application over to Thunderbird or Outlook. It would not work in the free Windows Mail (Vista version of Outlook Express).

Well, those days are gone. Cloudmark has released a beta version of Cloudmark Desktop for Windows Mail.

"What brand of computer do you recommend?" is one of the most common questions I get asked. My answer is usually, "It really doesn't matter as long as it is a name brand and has the specs that you need."

I often hear comments like, "Our first computer was a Dell and we constantly had problems with viruses and spam," or "I'm never going to get another HP, this one just locks up and crashes all the time."

Most computer problems I see every day have nothing to do with the parts they are made up of. Most home computer problems are software related - not hardware.

The iPod has set the standard for media players. It's ease of use and intuitive interface make it a device that media lovers of all ages and expertise can easily pickup and use.

However, the iPod has one disadvantage when compared with almost every other media player on the market. Once your music is stored on the system, there is no simple way of getting it back off again. If you switch computers or simply want to make a backup of your tunes, you must find a way around this system Apple has put in place to prevent you from pirating the music that has been purchased from iTunes.

People always ask about the difference between right-click and left-click. The primary difference is that the right-click always brings up a menu called the context menu.

The items on the context menu change depending on where on the screen you click the mouse.

The video explains the importance of the Properties option on the context menu.