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Riding Shotgun with Adam

Rock Band has me in an eBay mood

It has become a holiday tradition for me to go through an eBay selling phase. It all began when the XBox 360 was released and continued on with the PlayStation 3.

I was beginning to think that I would not have an opportunity to buy this year’s crazy in-demand toy and resell it on eBay. Then came Rock Band.

In a totally unexpected move, I purchased two Rock Band Special Edition kits. I saw that most stores only had a few in stock so I looked them up on eBay and read about the holiday supply in the news.

Black Friday Shopping Spoiler

I kind of enjoy shopping. I don’t enjoy watching other people shop, but if I have some money to spend, I kind of enjoy the experience.

Black Friday is always fun. Typically my wife stands in one line while I stand in another before the sun comes up with a list of things that we want to rush in and grab for the kids.

Digging through the paper with all of the Black Friday ads is as much of a Thanksgiving tradition for us as the turkey, stuffing and polka music.

The Internet bargain sites have kind of ruined Black Friday for me this year because the ads are being leaked.

Two sites that are tracking leaked Black Friday ads are:

TGI BlackFriday.com

Dell 3110cn the best color printer on the market

dell 3110cn I have been using the Dell 3110cn color laster printer for 10 months now and I must say that it is amazing. I just checked the stats tonight and we have printed over 1000 pages per month 10,480 to be exact.

During that time we have put $100 worth of toner into it. Currently our black cartridge is at 40 percent, cyan and magenta are at 80 percent and yellow is at 60 percent. The black is the cartridge that we replaced previously. Let’s do some math. A nice durable ink jet printer costs roughly $150. A set of ink tanks costs about $60. Every 700 pages a $30 cartridge needs to be replaced. Color cartridges may go out sooner.

Most users go through about 5000 sheets per year. Between color and black, it is not unusual for an ink jet user to pay out $210 in ink for an economical ink jet and even more if you have an Epson, newer HP or older Canon. Heaven help you if you have a Lexmark that takes $45 cartridges.

Adding the cost of ink and printer, you will likely spend at least $950 combined ink and printer cost in the first four years. Most estimates are much higher than this. The average costs used by many online reviews for ink jet printers is $60 per 700-1000 sheets. If this figure is more accurate that you can almost double the costs mentioned above. True you can save some money by

Google phone in the works

No one is really sure yet, what it all means, but Google announced today that it has joined forces with dozens of other companies to work on a new smartphone platform called Android (gPhone would sound stupid and cutesy).

Android is not technically a phone, it is a mobile linux platform for which phones and software can be developed.

No phones have been announced.
Expect the first phones out by the middle of next year, if Google can do what Microsoft and Apple can’t and actually release a product on time.

After scanning the web for details on the android, this is probably the best article we came across to make sense of it all.

XBox 360 Nyko Intercooler Overheat Problems

This is perhaps a strange thing for our basic computer help website, but it is a pretty serious matter to some people in the computer and electronics business. I couldn’t find a head quarters for information on this problem, so I figured I would try to make one here. Of course we also hope it brings a few new folks to the website.

I bought an XBox 360 about a year after they had been released. Along with my purchase I bought an Intercooler by Nyko. This is a device that plugs into the power of the XBox and blows air past the back fans. The idea and advertised claim is that it would improve the life of my system and cool the inner components.

Spyware’s on the rise – Rules to keep your computer safe

We have posted a number of tips for getting rid of spyware, but most spyware is totally preventable. Most of it comes as gullible, over confident teenagers surf the web. Here’s a list of rules you can print out and post by the computer to keep the computer safe. These are not in order or importance.

1. Use Mozilla Firefox to surf the web

2. Do not click on anything that claims that you have won something

3. Do not click on anything that claims that you might win something

4. Do not click on anything that asks your to vote (except for the HelpMeRick.com poll)

5. Do not download free ringtones, screensavers, games or wallpaper – especially if you are required to install a program for them to work

How you can help HelpMeRick

Has our site ever helped you solve a problem? Did you search all over the web before you found the answer here? If so, you can help us out by visiting some of the other sites that failed to solve your problem and post a link to where you found the answer at HelpMeRick.com.

Only do this if you can post a direct link to the page where we solved the problem. We do not want to be accused of spamming so only post solutions and links from HelpMeRick where they will truly help someone.

How this helps us:

Google ranks sites based on popularity and relevance. Popularity is easy, but you can’t fake relevance. When other sites link back to us, it makes our site more relevant. But it only works if people follow the link and they find our site helpful.

Stop the Photoshop Elements Browser Popup – VIDEO TIP

Adobe Photoshop Elements has a built-in program that searches for all of the photos on your computer and catalogs them. It then displays thumbnails of all of the photos it finds so that you can get to photos faster.

This seems great, but Adobe did a pretty terrible job with the program. It is slow and way to difficult to use for a basic program. Picasa is free and it works much better.

The worst part of the Photoshop Elements browser program is that it takes over. After installing Photoshop Elements version 3 on up to the current version 5, the browser program pops up whenever you plug in a digital camera or memory card. This is very annoying since the program is slow to load and difficult to understand, especially when you aren't expecting it.

Here is a quick video tip. That demonstrates how to turn off the browser popup feature.