If you are in a household with many computers all with their own iTunes libraries, there is a great way to share the music from one computer to another. ITunes now allows you to share your library over your network. Once configured, you will see the library available in the shared section of the left hand panel in iTunes.

Here is how to set it up:

From iTunes, select "Edit" and then "Preferences." Once the Preferences windows opens, select the "sharing" tab, and finally "Share my library on my local network." You are able to select various types of music, videos, and much more. At the bottom, you can also require a password.

All music should stream fine over a 54G wireless connection but you will want a physical connection for video.

Eventually, we all have a spare or old computer we no longer need that is sitting around collecting dust. Some of us might get the idea to sell it but others may decide to give it to charity. Whatever the reason is, you must make sure you properly delete the data on the computer you are donating off of the hard disk.

It is a common misconception that reformatting a drive deletes the data on your hard drive. Actually, when you reformat a drive, you really just the the drive to forget where the data is. The drive in your computer may not show anything there but it is still there until it is written over by saving new data. With proper tools, data from a formatted drive can be recovered quite easily.

DBAN or Derik’s Boot and Nuke is a free utility that will really wipe all data from your drive. Instead of reformatting a drive, DBAN actually writes 0’s or blobs of data over your data. DBAN has a variety of options to overwrite data over and over multiple times for when you want to be really secure.

To find DBAN, do a Google search for "DBAN." Once there, read the instructions on how to create a bootable CD and run DBAN.

!!!Warning!!! If you use DBAN on your C drive, you will erase everything and never be able to recover anything again. This is exactly what you want to do if selling or giving away a computer.

In case you have not heard, Vista Service Pack 1 has been officially released my Microsoft. The update includes all of the security updates since the release of Vista, a huge amount of performance updates/bug fixes and a few other things.  For a list of everything, check out the release notes here. I have updated my system to SP1 with no issues. I suggest you update as soon as you get a chance.

I like to report about good experiences I have with companies. Here is another story.

The other day I ordered a digital camera from Costco.com that included a free 2 GB memory card. Because I was not paying attention, I did not bother to read how to get my free 2Gb memory card. I assumed the memory card was automatically included but I really was supposed to add it to my cart during checkout. Completely not aware of my blunder, I received an e-mail from a person named Kyle at Costco. The e-mail explained how I screwed up my order but said not to worry, Costco had taken the liberty to add the free memory card to my order. The memory card also had to be sent out seperate from my order which means Costco had to pay more for shipping. Costco: Whenever I need to buy something, I will look at Costco first.

There are many ways to backup your data, some free and some for a fee. If you are looking for a way to automate some sort of backup process, take a look at Microsoft’s free backup solution called SyncToy. SyncToy is a super easy to understand backup utility where you find a directory of files you want to backup, and make it backup to a directory you want. Once you select all the places to backup files, you can backup everything with the click of a button. For a more comprehensive understanding of SyncToy, please visit: http://bigpcgeek.com/howtobackup.htm

If you are like me, you are on the go often and always need to access files on your home computer. Log Me In’s free software program Hamachi, has solved this issue for me. Hamachi is a VPN system or a Virtual Private Network system and it does just that, create a virtual private network that allows you to connect to your computer at home. When you install Hamachi on your computer, it creates it’s own IP address that you use to connect to along with a password. In order for Hamachi to seamlessly work, you will have to install Hamachi on the current computer you are using to connect to your home computer and connect to the network you created so your own personal laptop would be best. You don’t want to install Hamachi on a public computer and then chance someone else being able to get into your home computer. For a more comprehensive discription of how to use Hamachi, please visit my web page @  http://bigpcgeek.com/howtovpn.htm To download Hamachi, please visits http://www.logmein.com

Hamachi is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux but is harder to figure out for OSX and Linux because a lack of a GUI or Graphical User Interface.

Hamachi is for a fee and free with limitations. If you like the software, you should pay for it.

If you have Windows Vista, you may have used that Power symbol button to turn off your computer or you may have not. The button is actually Microsoft’s improvement to Hibernation we all know so well from Windows XP. When you click the button Vista actually writes everything your are doing from Ram to your hard drive and puts the computer into a very low power state. The great idea behind doing this is so you can quickly return to your session without waiting for the computer to boot up.

So here is the process: You click the Power Button from the Start Menu, your computer writes your session to your hard drive, and finally the computer turns off. Once you do this, there is a bit of lag time where you can’t do anything because your system is being written to your hard disk but once it is finished, you are ready to go. when you want to turn on your computer, just hit the power button and log in if necessary. You will notice your computer will be ready in a few seconds, much faster than your normal boot up.

If you want to limit your child’s computer time, Windows Vista has a great tool built in that will stop them dead in their tracks. From the control panel, you are able to create a whole schedule that only allows specific users access to their account when you specify. When logged in, the user will get a 15 and 1 minute warning before they are automatically logged off. There is a whole bunch of other parental controls that includes collecting information about the usage of the user and what games they can play. If you have a problem with your child and computer usage, look into turning on the parental controls.

A Chinese company named SoloMobi claims that a phone with a 16,800mAh lithium battery, yes 16,800mAh,  will stay powered on stand by for a year. I seriously doubt it but a 16,800mAh battery is what I sure need in my phone. Typically, in any battery powered device, the higher the mAh, the longer the battery will last. I am not too educated on batteries so I may be wrong but this has been my experience. What is really cool, the company is rating the phone as a 3-5 day talk time. Could you imaging charging your cell phone every week instead of every night? Heck! Sometimes I have to charge my phone more than once a day. All information here was summarized from Engadget.com

I have noticed while making tech house calls, that many people who have Vista don’t use it’s built in search from the Start Menu. You will be amazed how cool and quick it is. As soon as you start typing the the program, everything with that name in it starts to pop up and you can select the program or type the whole name and hit enter. If you are a slow typist, I can see why you would not use this feature but if not, you are missing out on some Vista efficiency. The cool part about Instant Search is that it gets faster the more you use it. Next time you click the start menu, try to type what you need. For an even quicker result, get in the habit of hitting the Windows key on your keyboard and then begin typing.