Many moons ago there used to be several electronics store chains that were truly good at what they did. Back in New England where I grew up, Massachusetts had quite a few of them both regional and national, such as Tweeter, Nobody Beats the Wiz! (which still exists,) Fretter and so on. Even Service Merchandise (which also exists but online-only) had a truly decent electronics section back in the day.

Right now what we have for electronic stores in the US are big-box free-standers, such as Best Buy. The problem with stores like this is that they are very disconnected from the customer base due to their size. Yes, you can get help when you ask for it, but personal service is usually at a minimum and product knowledge low.

Another problem is that the big-box electronics retailers are essentially all the same. Using the now-defunct Circuit City as an example, if you were to ask somebody, "What was the difference between Best Buy and Circuit City?", the answer is, "Um.. one was red and the other yellow?" There was literally no other difference.

Some would say, "What about Radio Shack?" RS doesn’t sell electronics anymore, I don’t care what anybody says. Their primary focus is cell phones and has been for some time. That is what they push more than anything else, and it’s always the first thing you see when you enter the store by design.

What is desperately needed these days are smaller electronic stores. Electronics has had a huge resurgence in the market, and more people are gravitating towards the brick-and-mortar compared to online. The problem is, at least in the US, that our choices for true electronics stores are terrible. We have places that are either way too big, or traditional department stores like Wal-Mart or Target that simply have a "department" for electronics and nothing more. Both are equally awful.

I am 34 years old, meaning I’m smack dab in the core demographic of people that purchase mid-to-high end electronics for the home – but I have nowhere to go to shop for this stuff save for what’s mentioned prior.

The store chains I mentioned at the beginning of this article would typically not sell cheap stuff. Almost everything in the store started in the mid-range territory. This was actually very good to know, because no matter what you bought, you knew it at least wasn’t bottom-of-the-barrel crap and that what you bought was a quality product.

There were several other good advantages to the small-box electronics store:

• You could browse a ton of products without having to walk the length of a football field just to do it.
• For audio products you got a much more accurate representation of what it would truly sound like in your home due to the store’s smaller size.
• The box your product came in was always perfect (hey, it matters.)
• Staff was very knowledgeable about just about every product in the store.

Is it time for the small-box electronics store to come back? I think so.

What do you think?

This article concentrates on the crap you download and not the crap that just accumulates over time.

It honestly amazes me how much I download. If you’re like most people (including myself), you probably have a downloads folder where you place everything. Then seemingly all of a sudden the folder contains 6 gigs or more worth of files, with the top 3 culprits (in bigness) being video files, audio files and installation executables.

And forget about organizing the downloads folder you have because every time you think you’ve got it just right, you need another category which means another subfolder. And another. And another.

Here are the 5 ways to keep crap off your computer box.

1. Keep email attachments in email.

Email in today’s modern internet has gigs and gigs of space at your disposal. Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail have ever-increasing file quota sizes. That being the case, if someone sends you a file and you view it once, delete it off your drive afterward. It’s in your email anyway, so if you ever need to retrieve it again, it’s there.

2. Make a habit of archiving installation files immediately after installation.

You download Mozilla Firefox because you want to try it out, and install it. Right after the installation, push the file over to CD, DVD or USB stick and delete it off your hard drive.

Do this for every type of program you download and make a habit of it, else these seemingly smaller executable files can turn into a mess in short order.

3. Periodically search your hard drive for the largest files.

In Windows XP: Start / Run / type explorer / press Enter.

Highlight your primary hard drive (usually C).

Click the Search button or use the CTRL+F keystroke.

Choose to search All files and folders.

Expand What size is it? and choose to search for files 5000 KB or larger.

It should look similar to this:

The search will take time to complete. When finished, click View, then Arrange Icons By, then Size so you can see the largest files first (or last depending on how your list is set up).

Examine what you find. Sometimes you’ll find crap in there you don’t even need.

Here’s an example using my own computer:

The file I have highlighted is wireless drivers for my Dell laptop. I archived this months ago. 80MB of space wasted. I deleted it and got the space back.

Important note: Do not delete anything out of vital system folders, such as C:\WINDOWS, C:\Program Files or anything underneath it.

And if you find a file that looks odd to you, perform a Google search to see what it is. For example, in the above screen shot you see MRT.exe. A Google search for that file reveals that to be a Microsoft-specific program needed by the operating system.

4. Use a compression program for large batches of files.

I recommend 7-Zip to compress files into smaller easy-to-manage archives.

Example: You have a digital camera and take a lot of photos. On your hard drive are 500 of them you want to store.

After installing 7-Zip, go to where the files are, highlight them all, right-click, hover over the 7-Zip menu and select to add to archive. Make your archive and it’s a done deal.

Archiving with a file compression program is not so much for saving space as it is for organization using it in this way. In addition you can encrypt archives and set passwords with 7-Zip. It even has the option to make self-installer executable SFX archives too.

5. Use encrypted volumes that mount drive letters easily.

You know that a store-bought DVD can hold 4.7GB worth of data.

Wouldn’t it be nice to set a drive letter in Windows that was exactly that size, so when it’s full you know it’s time to archive it and make a new one?

With TrueCrypt you can do just that – and do it securely.

Download that software (it’s free) then read the Beginner’s Tutorial on how to create a "container" on your system. While following the directions, make your container size 4.7GB (it’s best to set it to just 4GB so you know it will always fit on a DVD no matter what).

Assign it a drive letter in Windows (the software does this easily and tells you how) and when it’s all filled up, push it to DVD afterward, then just create another.

When the size limit is reached for the container, Windows will let you know by stating it cannot write any further data to the selected drive.

It doesn’t get any easier than this. There is no partitioning necessary, no rebooting, none of that. You get the "extra" drive letter you want at exactly the right size you specify that gives you appropriate warnings when you tap the limit.

Try to keep your computer box crap-free, everybody.

Periodically I get asked the question, “So, what are you running?”, in relation to my computer box, its OS, the apps I use, the hardware I use and so on.

Before I list off my stuff, Dave uses a Mac Pro quad-core with I believe 9GB of RAM. His monitors are dual Dell 24-inchers and an older third one that I can’t remember the make/model of at the moment.

The hardware:

• My box is a custom case with a Biostar motherboard.
• My CPU is a 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.
• I run 2GB of RAM.
• My hard drive is 250GB (and yes I know I should really add in another drive given how cheap they are these days).
• I use a plain-jane wired optical Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 1000 with the wheel-click set as a double-click (very handy) using the Microsoft Intellimouse software. (INTERESTING TIBIT: On that link for the software, Windows 7 is already mentioned. Interesting, eh? There’s even a support page for it already.)
• My keyboard is a Saitek Eclipse blue LED backlit, bought on sale for $29.99 with free shipping so it was a true $29.99. Works fairly well. Not the best keyboard I’ve ever owned but does the job. I appreciate the fact the Saitek does not require any special drivers at all to use. Just plug in and go.
• I run a dual-monitor setup, one is a BenQ FP202W at 1680×1050 and the other an now-ancient Sony SDM-S73 17-inch which has definitely seen better days but functions fine as  a secondary monitor. I do appreciate that the base on the Sony is heavy. It stays put.
• The video card I have is 512MB EVGA which is an nVidia 8400GS dual-head (one DVI, one VGA).
• I own three USB sticks, all Sandisk cruzer micros. One is an older 512MB, one 2GB and one recently purchased 4GB. My next one will most likely be a 16 or 32GB because it would be very cool to offload most if not all the stuff I have backed up on DVD on to a single USB stick. The dream situation (which may happen in less than 2 years) is to have a 120GB stick or at least 80GB. For all intents and purposes, that’s a backup drive and a darn good one at that.

Some of the software I use (if I listed it all it would be a bit too lengthy on read):

• My primary OS is Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3 with all the latest updates. No, I do not own Vista and don’t plan to considering Win 7 will be here in less than a year.
• My primary office suite is OpenOffice. I have been using this for a long time. And since version 3 was released it looks and feels just about right.
• My secondary office suite is a now-ancient Microsoft Office 2000. This in my opinion was the last version of MS Office that ran fast before it got all bloated up and ran like crap. Some say that the current Office 2007 goes back to how fast the software used to be, but I personally don’t feel like shelling out $500 just to find that out, nor do I feel like installing the 60-day trial (although it is nice Microsoft offers a trial run for that long). OO does the job, and if not, MSO 2000 will.
• I use Launchy a lot. A whole lot. It is faster than using a mouse to launch apps and I like speed.
• I use Sizer to quickly resize windows to specific dimensions. It comes in handy when I record screencasts.
• My primary browser is Firefox. I use only a scant few plugins to keep memory use down. The two I use most are Foxmarks and ScreenGrab.
• My primary text editor is Notepad++. It’s the best text editor for Windows, period.
• My PDF reader is FoxIt Reader. It is lighter and faster than Adobe Reader.
• I create PDFs using OpenOffice (there’s a “PDF” icon right in the software) or PDF Creator as a pseudo print driver.
• My primary instant messenger is AIM Lite, and if I weren’t using that I’d most likely use Miranda. Both these IM apps are not about features but all about being lightweight and speedy.
• My primary blogging tool is Windows Live Writer. If I had to go without this, that would suck.
• My email application is Mozilla Thunderbird. No matter what mail I go with I inevitably always come back to t-bird.
• I backup my mail using KLS Mail Backup.
• I use KeePass Password Safe as my password manager.
• Being the GPS nut that I am, I have a host of mapping utilities including Garmin’s MapSource, WebUpdater, and POI Loader. I also use Google Earth, KMLCSV, GPXTOPOI and a few others.
• I do have Steam installed when I feel like playing a few games every so often.
• For easy dual-monitor wallpaper I use Display Fusion.
• For screencasting I use Camtasia Studio.

Well anyway, that covers about, oh.. 35% of the apps I use.

What’s your hardware?

List the stuff in your computer box. Does it work for you? What do you plan to upgrade later?

What’s your software?

What do you use most often and why? Do you prefer to stay with older versions or go with the latest/greatest?

Let us know.

Over the course of the weekend I finally got around to hooking up my Magnavox DTV Digital to Analog Converter. The model of this particular converter is TB100MG9 for those interested.

For those that just read the above and said, "What’s that for?", it’s the thing used to receive a digital over-the-air signals for an analog TV. Or to be very specific and quote directly what’s stated on the box, it’s "intended for receiving digital terrestrial broadcasts with an antenna (indoor or outdoor)."

Here’s the good and the bad:

The Good

The setup was fairly straightforward. I hooked up the rabbit ears to the box, then let it perform an auto-scan to get whatever channels it could.

I do get more channels compared to when I did on analog.

All channels have crisp clean images. Digital has no "snow" to speak of.

The color is notably better.

Channels have descriptive text boxes appear on-screen whenever you tune to them – a nice touch.

The Bad

(Bear in mind these complaints have everything to do with the box and box alone.)

I have yet another remote control to deal with. And the remote provided is terrible. Yeah, it works but it’s hard to read, the buttons are tiny and it’s a nuisance to use. Hopefully a universal remote control will take care of this.

The setup menu is absolutely infuriating to work with. It’s just not user friendly. Thankfully you don’t have go there that often.

The way this particular box renders close captioned text is just bad. To put this in perspective, imagine you’re watching a DVD with the spoken dialogue text being displayed on screen. Now imagine that text half its size. That’s what DTV closed captioned text is like on this Magnavox.

The audio for whatever reason is way too quiet when coming from the DTV box. I really have to crank up the volume compared to before.

The aspect ratio does not auto-adjust for standard definition or wide. Yes, you can manually change this option, but wow is it buried in the setup menu. And it’s not obvious where to find it either.

My thoughts and recommendations

I want to say first that yes, it works. Yes, TV looks better compared to before. Yes, you will really like DTV compared to over-the-air analog if that’s what you have.

I will however recommend against use of this particular Magnavox box. I’m sure there are DTV converters far superior to this one with a better menu system, more user friendliness, better remote control and so on. Yes, it will cost you more to get a different converter box, but I honestly think the cash would be well spent.

Again, the make/model I have is the Magnavox TB100MG9. I am uncertain whether this is still a current or discontinued model – but if you see it, I’d steer clear of it, and not because it doesn’t work (because it does work), but because of the complaints I outlined above.

A blog I recommend for everything to do with DTV converter boxes:

http://dtvconverterboxes.blogspot.com/

The Magnavox mentioned here is in there with a review as well as many others such as those made by Tivax, Zenith, Philco, RCA and several others. Definitely worth the read if you’re in the market for one.

Situation: You’ve decided that you’re going to build a new computer. You put your part list together (case, mainboard, RAM, hard drive, processor, etc.) and then come to the point where you have to purchase an optical drive.

Seems like a waste of money, doesn’t it?

On the Linux side of things, it has been proven that you can install a full version (meaning not "biz-card") of a Linux distro with absolutely no optical drive whatsoever.

In addition to that the vast majority of Linux apps are download-only territory, so there literally is no need for the optical at all. For backups you just plug in an external drive via USB or Firewire.

On the Windows side you are required to have an optical drive, but only for one thing – the installation of the Windows OS itself. However you could easily get away with using an external optical drive, install your OS then put the drive away until you need it (which will most likely be never).

For Windows gaming there are download options, the best (arguably) of which is Steam. No discs necessary and tons (and I mean tons) of really great games.

Also bear in mind there is a large push by the computer industry to "go cloud" as you’ve heard, such as with Windows Live applications. All that stuff is from the internet and no optical drive is necessary at any time.

On your next PC box build, could you go optical-less? Yes, absolutely. If doing it the Linux way, you don’t need the optical drive at all. If doing it the Windows way, all you need is an external to get the OS install out of the way and that’s that.

And what to do with that empty bay? You’d be better off putting in a card reader where the optical would otherwise go. You’ll probably get more use out of it than you would with the optical.

In the world of business there are many corporations that do not follow the calendar year (i.e. year begins on January 1) but rather the fiscal year. While it’s true that a fiscal year can start anytime depending on the business, most of them will use September.

As an example, high schools in the United States traditionally use September as the beginning of the year. Car manufacturers also introduce their "new year" models in September (right now you will find 2009 models even though it’s not technically 2009).

In the world of computers and electronics, a ton of new hardware is usually put out there as well. Motherboards, televisions, you name it. Lots and lots of new stuff.

In addition to the new stuff that’s out there, it is traditional that more or less all computer and electronic manufacturers are scrambling to dump last year’s stuff to make way for the new. Whenever anything new is introduced in computers and/or electronics, it’s obviously replacing its predecessor.

And that’s where you can save a buck if you’re in the market to buy.

There’s only one word you have to look for at your preferred computer/electronics retailer, and that word is "clearance". The new stuff is here and the retailers have got to clear the shelves to make room for it.

Typically you will find the best deals of the year right now. Not for the new stuff obviously but for the "old" stuff that’s still new that needs to be sold.

How to find clearance sales

With major big-box electronics retail (i.e. Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.) you will not see the drastic-price-cut items online because the inventory varies from store to store. What this means is that you have to physically go to the store to see how far they’ve slashed the price on certain items.

Typical items you will find on clearance in September:

Laptops

$900 laptops are slashed down to as low as $500 just to get rid of them. Remember, they are new and come with full warranties.

Overstocked peripherals

Premium keyboards, mice, audio gear, etc. Don’t bother looking at the cheap stuff, look at the good stuff that’s been marked down.

Media drives and media itself

Hard drives, optical drives, blank discs, etc. All this stuff is usually marked down this time of year – particularly the hard drives and flash media (USB sticks).

Digital Cameras

The more expensive digital cams are usually slow sellers, so the older models that need to get off the shelves usually have a nice fat price cut on them.

Other stuff

There may be stuff in the big-box store you spot where you say "Wow, can’t pass up that deal!" that you won’t see any other time of the year.

Stop by your local big-box electronics retailer. There’s probably some good deals waiting for you right now.

For users of Windows Live Hotmail you may have noticed that for some (but not all) forwarded e-mails and newsletters that contain images show these images as nothing but little gray boxes.

In particular, this gray box:

http://gfx1.hotmail.com/mail/w3/pr01/ltr/i_safe.gif

This is a relatively new issue that seems to have sprouted up with Hotmail. There is no issue otherwise with it.

Is this a setting you can turn off?

No.

Why can’t I just click "Show content?"

In this specific issue the yellow bar at the top which prompts you to click "Show content" isn’t there so you’re forced to deal with it.

Is there a workaround?

Not in the web-based version. However you can alternatively use the Windows Live Mail client to access your Hotmail and it will show all inline images for forwarded e-mails and newsletters (when you tell it to by allowing it to show content).

Why does this happen in the first place?

Unknown, but were I to hazard a guess it would be that Hotmail’s safety filters are working a little too well.