Give your PC a little extra care with Advanced WindowsCare Personal

Taking care of a PC is like remembering to get your car's oil changed. You usually forgot. Advanced WindowsCare Personal is a freeware application that will help keep your PC in tune. As servants in the Lord's ministry we don't have time to mess around with computers and keeping them in tune. This program simplifies that task and can be a huge help to elveate crashes, freezes, and other common issues with PCs. It checks for spyware, registry errors, analyzes your system, startup programs, and a few other checks as well. It's trustworthy and has been quite reliable for me on my PC. Since its free and it works, I can highly recommend this program.

Give it a try and finally tune up your PC.

What's making news.

Lots of things going on in the tech world today.

Microsoft has launched Windows Vista today. This latest version of the Windows comes almost 5 years after Windows XP. It is said to be a more secure and robust version of Windows. I'll let you all know what I think as soon as I complete my upgrade to it this week.

Apple has given the Shuffle a spot of color today. Funny how their announcement comes the same day as Vista is releasd.

Apple has also announced their $1.99 AirPort Extreme 802.11n Enabler. This will allow some Mac users to unlock their Mac computers 802.11n feature.

Nitendo's Wii is doing quite well for Nitendo and their profits. Funny thing about the Wii is I know several adults who have been playing the Wii and they love it. There are not much of gamers themselves, but they do like the interaction of the Wii.

This one is a couple days old, but Palm has end of life'd their Lifedrive Mobile Manager. I love my Lifedrive and I had been hoping for a new version of a Mobile Manager, but it looks like there may not be a Lifedrive 2.

Kids and the home office: how to make it work - Lifehacker

Kids and the home office: how to make it work is a wonderful article from Web Worker Daily. While it is focused on a programmers world, I felt that it could easily carry over to the pastor's world. I found this via Lifehacker, a website, I'd highly recommend for those who want to be more productive.

Being a pastor sometimes means you'll be working at home. I knew of pastors who claimed to get all their work done at the church and not have to do any of it at home. That's great for them, but I've yet to find that balance.

So sometimes I end up studying at home for a sermon or Sunday School lesson and that means my three boys will be around. Most of the time they will freely roam about in my office area and I don't mind at all. However, there are times I will tell my boys not to disturb me as I have important work to do and then I can play with them or whatever. They are usually good about that and my wife is a huge help in this area.

Family is very important to me and I don't want my kids to feel the ministry is so much more important then them that I can't break away to spend time with them. A home office can be a great blessing and I have found it to be so. These tips given are well worth a read. Our children grow up to fast in today's world. My oldest soon turns five in just over a month and I cannot believe how fast he has grown up. Maybe if we focus on this we can not allow ourselves to be so bothered by our children.

iPhoneImitation

Looking to make your Palm appear to be an iPhone, well here is your chance. We have yet another iPhone look-a-like launcher for your Palm device. The last one, iPhony, disappeared because of Apple's pressure on the developer. So someone else is trying again and I'm sure that Apple will be contacting them soon. To learn more about iPhone Imitation click here. As of miday Saturday, the file is still available for download for those interested in trying this out on their Palm devices. This one supports hires+ screens.

Backup program suggestions.

Well, as many of you know, my PC decided to rid itself of my documents, family pictures, and some of my music files. Thru the means of recovery software I was able to undelete most of my lost files. I have yet to figure out what happened and at this point I'm not likely to find out the why of the matter. I'll go ahead and explain what steps I have taken to prevent this from happening again.

Step #1 - I organized all of my folders that keep my important files like pictures, documents, etc. I made two copies of them and place the copies in separate folders on my second hard drive.

Step #2 - I have incorporated SyncBack (freeware) in backing up these files on a daily basis. My files if deleted on my first hard drive could be recovered from the second drive and I will have only lost a day's worth of work. I'm also trying out Power Folder (freeware) which can keep two folders synced as changes are made. I might end up user this so as not to lose any work whatsoever.

Step #3 - I've eliminated many extra programs I do not use on a regular basis. I've decided to know keep programs I think I might use down the road, but rather get rid of them so to less complicate my PC and hopefully avoid problems.

Step #4 - I cleaned up my register by using the suggested programs from 46 Freeware. So far these programs I have used have helped my computer have less errors at startup. The programs were Eusing Free Registry Cleaner and jv16 Power Tools.

Step #5 - Prior to all the above, I ran virus scans and spyware scans several times.

Step #6 - Prior to changing anything on my first hard drive, I use the PC Inspector Recovery Software to find my lost files and got most of them back. It is very important when you have a data lost to not add any new files or make changes to your hard drive as you can overwrite your lost data. This happened to me and that is why I didn't recover all that I could have. Another TGP reader suggested using Acronis True Image (commercial). The software suite retails for $49.99 and it would seem worth the money to avoid what has happened to me. I'm looking into purchasing this software to aid in keeping my important files backed up and safe.

Step #7 - I am creating DVD discs of my important files, mostly my pictures. I can stand to lose my documents, but my pictures of my kids and family, would be almost impossible to bear.

So that about wraps up what I've been thru this week. I've been spending too much time on this and I'm definitely taking steps to avoid this happening again in the future. I'll be posting some more today and I hope that you have taken the time to backup your important data as you don't want to have to live thru data loss with no recovery.

It hasn't got better.

Computers are fickle objects. You keep them clean, healthy, up-to-date and they still can get sick. You scan for spyware, adware, a virus, and whatever else you can and still it gets sick. So it is with my computer. In my last post, I mentioned I lost my documents, well I also lost 2 months worth of our family's pictures. I was able to recover about 70% of what I lost using PC Inspector File Recovery, a program that can undelete or recover lost files. It worked quite well for me as I was able to undelete and recover much of what I lost, but not all of it. Depsite backing up on my PDA daily, I don't backup anything on my PC at all. That has changed. I'm in the process of setting up a system to insure that I will have backups of my more recent files and then backing up older files onto DVD discs.
It's a learning process to be sure and one that I should had listened to others advice and the many articles I've read on backing your files up. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way. I'm just thankful it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

BTW, I've got a nasty cold and I've been slow getting posts out, so please bear with me as things are tad slow as I work my computer issue and get over this cold.

My scare for the day!

After coming home from my post-op appointment today, I wanted to work on a couple documents. When I opened the My Documents folder, none of my documents where there. All my folders that I had organized were gone. I looked in the recycle bin and search for them, but could not find them. At this point, my hands were quite sweaty and I thought I'd lost them all for good. I then remember that my Lifedrive syncs with my documents folder. Thankfully, my Lifedrive had all my documents that I had lost on my PC on my Lifedrive. I was able to restore them from my Lifedrive. After completing this task I restarted my computer and had three serious errors reported upon my return to Windows.

Had I not been able to recover this folder, I would have lost all of my financial records, documents from church stuff to personal stuff and posts I've been working on for Palm Addicts and for The Gadget Pastor. Not good at all. It's just another thing pushing me to a Mac computer. I'm sure Macs have their issues as well, but I've been having too many problems with this PC setup and Vista isn't impressing me at all.

Why this loss happened I don't know? I had worked on some documents on my PC yesterday and everything was fine, however today they were gone and errors abounded. I'll probably never figure out what went wrong, but I did begin using the Windows XP backup program to backup the My Documents folder. I would highly suggest anybody with important files like a My Documents folder to back it up. I have two hard drives in my PC and one of them is strictly for backing files to. I have all of our pictures store there and now I'm adding the My Documents folder.

If you are looking for an easy guide to backing up files using the Windows Backup utility, take a look at this article, "Windows XP Backup Made Easy." It will make it easier for you to set your backups automatically. I wouldn't wait to do this later, but do it now as you don't want to have the unfortunate happen and be without a backup. Keep in mind this would be a good idea to do at home or at your ministry.

If you now of other backup programs (shareware, freeware, etc.) that you would like to suggest please use the comments like below to share that program with others.

Parallels to turn it around, help Mac OS onto generic PC boxen - Engadget

Parallels to turn it around, help Mac OS onto generic computers. Now that idea to me is quite appealing, but I'm sure that Apple won't let this happen too easily. I would love to have Mac OS X on my 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB, 350 GB hard drive PC. Maybe it won't be too long away. We'll have to see...

"With the popularity of software like Apple's Boot Camp and SWsoft's Parallels, it's no secret that people want to run Windows and Mac OS on the same box, but who says that it has to be an Apple box? Well, Apple does, and the company has staunchly defended itself from the porting of OS X into the mad world of PC generics (not with total success, of course). But with mounting pressure from users and increasing software support from VMware and SWsoft, Steve Jobs might have to let go of his tight..."

VLC Media Player

One thing that will drive me crazy is not being able to play a particular video with Windows Media Player because I lack a certain codec or whatever. I've also been encountering a problem with Power DVD as it crashes during the playback of my DVDs. This happened a lot when I was using my PC to watch videos while I rested on my bed. So I began to search out for a new video player that would play lots of the different video files out there and DVDs. What I found was VLC Media Player. Here is the app's description from its homepage:

" VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network."

So, far it has worked great and watching DVDs has been much more pleasurable then with Power DVD. VLC Media Player is freeware and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. There are well over 6 million downloads of this media player. I'm also glad it works on Mac as I will be switching to a Mac once the latest version of Mac OS X comes out later this Spring.
If you are looking for a video player that will handle most of the media files that you will come across, VLC Media Player will handle them just fine. BTW, Lifehacker is reporting that you can also rip DVDs with this program. Please be careful and know your country's copyright laws before ripping any copy protected DVD.

Weekend Thought: Do Bible programs on our computers and mobile devices make us dumb?

After my surgery, I found that I could not easy sit at my computer and was confined to my bed or the couch for a few days. Sitting around with not much to do, does offer one lots of time to think. Being away from my computer for a couple days proved to be a good experience. I realized how useful it was and how it was a time waster for me all at the same time. I love technology and I rely on it on a daily basis from email to blogging to keeping my schedules. It is a necessity in my ministry and my personal life.

However, I think it makes me dumb when it comes to Bible studying. The reason I say this is I don't attempt to find verses anymore using my Bible, I search for them using my PC or PDA software. While many call this productivity, I found that looking thru my Bible for a verse or passage meant I would stumble upon other verses that I have underlined or highlighted over the years. Even using a concordance is better as you will look up many verses or see other verses that are associated with your word or topic. While I may spend less time search for something with my PC, I can't help but wonder if I'm really missing something along the way.

Also when I prepare a message, I tend to copy and paste the verses I need into my sermon notes rather then writing out those verses. If I just took a few minutes to write verses out rather then copy and paste, I wonder how much more of an effect they would have on me.

Instead of pulling out the Strong's concordance, I just right click on a word and look it up in mere seconds. Wouldn't I benefit more by finding it on my own?

I know many folks and TGP readers use Bible programs on their mobile devices and computers. I do as well, but I wonder if they have hurt us more than have helped us. When we don't have access to a computer or our mobile device, and folks are asking about a specific verse, wouldn't it be nice to find that verse right away in our Bibles? It would seem more embarrassing for us to say, "Hold on a minute and let me search for that on my computer or PDA." Doesn't seem like we have let "the Word of God the word of Christ dwell in you[us] richly." Maybe its time to have more of a hands-on-the-Bible approach instead of a simple search-for-it-with-my-Bible-program.

What do you think? Do think your Bible program has been a help or a hurt to you when it comes to knowing the Bible? Click on the comments link below to leave your thoughts.

Conservative Christian music at Sacred Audio

I certainly enjoy listening to music on my iPod. Since owning my iPod, I've found myself listening to more music and podcasts then I had before my iPod. When it comes to my taste in Christian music, I prefer a instrumental conservative style over the more popular contemporary style. So you can imagine my excitment when I found Sacred Audio at website dedicated to those that enjoy instrumental conservative style of Christian music. They have many albums and tracks available for download. You can even download a freebie, Sweet Hour of Prayer. I've listened to quite a few of their previews and I found several songs that I liked. If you favor sacred music, you ought to check out Sacred Audio. Their tracks sell for $.99 and many of the albums sell for $9.99, so the prices are rather competitive.

Alex Pruss makes slight updates to MineHunt and Hardball and releases a new program

I have several applications developed by Alex Pruss on my Lifedrive. My all time favorite is Fontsmoother and if you are still using the default fonts of your Pam or Treo device, you really need to take a look at Fontsmoother.

Alex Pruss has taken Minehunt and Hardball and given them a slight update. He mentioned this update over in the 1src forums and that's where I noticed it. Exactly what he updated I do not know. However, I use to play these games on my m100 all the time. I thought it was so cool to be able to play MineHunt wherever I went. Hardball was a lot of fun too and I lost many hours to it. Here is Alex's comments on these updates:

"Both very, very slightly updated for OS 5 (and still compatible with OS 3.5 and up). MineHunt was, I think, included with some Palm models. Both games are from the OS 4 example source code, so I can't take any credit or blame except for minor modifications.

http://www.palmgear.com/?xyz=129474
http://www.palmgear.com/?xyz=129514

Unlike many modern apps, these are refreshingly small, 18K for the one and 25K for the other."

Alex also released another app that I have installed on my app called Center Menu 1.0 beta. This app is quite handy and enables you to maximize your one handed use of your Palm or Treo device. On my Lifedrive it enables my center select button to activate the drop down menu in a program. All I have to do is hold the better for a second or so. This does disable the default action of the center button for my Lifedrive which is to show what alarms have gone off in the calendar application. Here is the program description from Alex:

"This software and its source code is in the Public Domain.
Use at your own risk.

CenterMenu on newer Palms (T5, TX, Lifedrive, TE2, Treo 650+)
replaces the not-very-useful notices viewing that you get by
holding down the center key on the navigator, by the ability
to trigger the menu by holding down the center key for a
second. You can hide the menu by holding down the center
key for a second again.

http://www.1src.com/freeware/fileinfo.php?id=1634"

Christian Palm Addicts Forum

Sammy over at Palm Addict has setup a thread for Christian Palm Addicts to discuss Palm/Treo programs and Palm/Treo other tips and tricks. There has been some good discussion already in the thread. If you haven't visited the Palm Addict forums, I'd highly recommend it as you'll find a friendly atmosphere and one devoid of the usually forum discussions.

ActionBible™ a free Bible program for your PC

ActionBible™ looks like a decent Bible program for your PC. It is freeware although you do have to submit your name, address, and email to them (they do keep your info private). I don't believe I've ever heard of this program before. I stumbled upon it while searching for some free software for my church. So, it does look to be a simple program and not much extras, but I'm sure some folks would appreciate a program with less bells and whistles. Here is the feature list:

• Fast, user-friendly layout and simple design
• FREE Download, FREE registration
• Featuring the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible
• Other free translations, including the King James Version, to download
• NASB and HCSB available as licensed modules
• No overblown study library features to slow things down and make it complicated
• Easy cut & paste options
• Quick study notes, verse notes, and daily journal features
• Right-click to compare translations, highlight passages or words, and bookmark favorite verses
• For those whose desire is to put the Word of God into action

Palm Addicts reporting that Palm has provide an update for the Treo 680 battery issue

Looks like Palm intends to get things right with the Treo 680 as they have just posted an update for the Treo 680 to help correct the short battery life many users have been experiencing. All in all, this is a quick update and I'm glad to see Palm getting this out so quickly. Now, we'll have to wait and see what the user reports are. Keep your eyes on Palm Addict as I'm sure Sammy, Peter, and the other Treo 680 users will be reporting on this quite soon.

Source: Palm Addict

Apple to see near 50% gross margin on each iPhone sale

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple to see near 50% gross margin on each iPhone sale. I'm not entirely stunned by this report as Apple has always charged a premium for their computers and iPods. If you saw the keynote, you might have heard Steve Jobs say that all they were hoping to do was capture 1% of the cellphone market. Some analysts believe Apple could sell 12 million of these devices. If they only sold 10 million of the devices in their first year, that means there would be a profit of somewheres around $2.5 billion dollars if my math is correct. That's a chunk of change.

Online Bible North America - Downloads

Online Bible was a popular Bible program for the PC when I was in college. Mainly because it was free and being a college student I never had a lot of money. So, I used online Bible to help with my classes and sermon preparations. Its been a while since I last checked their site and I found out that they now offer a Pocket PC app that works alongside Online Bible for your PC. I don't have a Pocket PC so I cannot test this feature. However, if you have a PPC and didn't know about this feature, it might be worth checking out and downloading the program. After all it is free. They do offer my favorite commentary set by Matthew Henry. I think it's one of the best commentary sets out there as it is loaded with content, doctrine, explanations, and insights on the Scriptures.

Pogue’s Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog

Pogue’s Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog is a good resource to help you better understand the Apple iPhone. David Pogue is a popular tech guru from the New York Times. He's reviewed loads of gadgets and his opinion weighs heavily on the consumer's decision.
There's been quite a stir over the iPhone and the impact it will have on the cellphone and smartphone market. I believe it will help other smartphone makers like RIM, Palm, Nokia, etc. to design more advance products instead of the some old design. The Apple iPhone may not be all that folks had hoped it to be, but it still looks great and there are 5 more months for the device to get some of the wrinkles ironed out. I do believe that this device will be quite a success down the road. I'm not sure though that this first generation product will be a huge success.
If you are already a mac user at your home or church, the iPhone maybe right up your alley. If you have been considering a smartphone to help you be more productive, then this device may not fit all that you want. You should consider a Palm Treo device as they are much cheaper and have a tried and true record. The iPhone is yet to be completed and it will have limited, if any, 3rd party programs available for it.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities is a popular list of Windows freeware software. It covers everything from anti-virus to search toolbars to registry cleaners. The page is updated on a regular basis, so its the perfect resource to bookmark for future use. I picked up a registry cleaner from this site yesterday to help with a problem I had on my Windows XP computer. With all the issues, I've been having lately, I'm looking at purchasing a Mac mini. Hopefully, I can do this so, because I'm getting very much tired of Windows.
I hope these freeware utilities can be helpful to maintain your computer at the church or at home and most important of all, keep you productive as you serve the Lord's ministry.

Make your own "Silly Putty" - Lifehacker

Make your own "Silly Putty" is a cool craft from Lifehacker. This would be an excellent bus giveaway, Sunday School promotion, etc. It really doesn't take much work at all and with a few helping hands you could easily have this ready for Sunday. It is a slight messing, but the cost of it is relatively low. Have fun!