Whether your PC is five days old or five years old, one thing’s for certain. Your computer needs to stay protected from viruses, spyware and itself.

Itself? Yes, itself. Computers are like messy little kids. Once they’re done using the files they need, they drop everything and move on. No putting things back where they go. Just like that annoying nephew of yours.

This article will give you the lowdown on four free programs that will help keep your old or new PC running the way it should: fast and clean.

Read the rest of this entry »

What do I hope to accomplish with my blog in 2008?

• Post more consistently - Up until now I’ve blogged when I’ve had time and even then it’s been a sort of "write then publish" mindset. I’m going to use 2008 to get more intentional with my blogging and use some tried and true techniques to (hopefully) improve my posts. Will I post every day? Unlikely. Ideally, though, when I do post, it’ll be richer content.
• Less trash, more treasure - I’m going to funnel what used to be my quick posts to my tumblog and use shawnw.org for more substantial posts. I’ve had a tumblog for some time now but never really used it. You’ll notice I now have a list of my recent tumblog posts in my sidebar along with a Fun Stuff button, which links to my tumblog, near the top of my blog.
• Get 100 RSS subscribers by this time next year - I experimented with posting something at least once a day for a month and my RSS subscriber count didn’t really rise (it’s hovered around 40 since late summer). Then again, I was simply posting links to funny pictures, videos, and the like. My focus in 2008 will be to publish more tech howto articles making my blog more valuable and RSS subscriber-worthy.

This post was inspired by Daily Blog Tip’s Group Writing Project. To all those who made it here via DBT, good luck to you in 2008!

Thanks to DBT for the image above.

What would the Crucifixion, Moses parting the Red Sea, Noah’s Ark perched on an atoll all alone, and the Garden of Eden look like if Google Earth’s satellite point of view had captured them? Click the image below to find out.

What do you think? Pretty profound if you ask me.

I’ve gotten a ton of mileage out of Interfacelift’s selection of free computer backgrounds and I think you’ll enjoy them, too. Check them out at this link:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpapers/

I’ve got what I think is a pretty extensive iTunes library with somewhere around 3000 songs. Having that many songs means I forget what some of the songs are, and even after the first few seconds of the song playing, I still can’t tell, just from listening, what the song is.

You might ask, "who cares what the song is?" Well… I care! I keep pretty much every MP3 I rip from a CD I own or buy from iTunes, even if I get sick of the song because you never know when you might want to hear it again.

Read the rest of this entry »