Stop the Internet spies

The problem of unwanted adware and spyware just keeps getting worse.
Here's this week's NBC-TV "High Tech Talk" segment that looks at two og my favorte spy busters - Adaware and Spybot Search & Destroy.
Click the video below to see my report, which is sent weekly to all 215 NBC-TV affiliates.

What will Social Security give you?

Social Security is going up for America’s 49 million retirees. The extra money - a 3.3% increase - works out to about $33 a month for the average retiree. It will start showing up in January.
But just how much can all of us expect from this much-discussed and perennial election year hot button program?

My NBC-TV "High Tech Talk" segment this week looks at some very helpful Websites. Here's the video report. The links to the sites I feature are below.

WEBSITES in Video:
Social Security calculators http://www.ssa.gov/planners/calculators.htm
Retiring Early http://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/06/retiringearly.asp
How much will you need? http://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/05/050405.asp
AARP Financial help http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/yourmoney/

Halloween online

It’s Halloween time… online. And the Internet is filled with some handy Websites that can help you get your home and little goblins and ghosts ready for the big night. My NBC-TV “High tech talk” report this week shows off some of my favorite sites.

Now there are virtual online haunted houses like the “Haunt Your House” section at BuyCostumes.com. Here you can find all sorts of Halloween props… like fake eyeballs… a flickering evil tree you can put in the front yard… warning signs and fright night decorations for your home.

Looking for a real haunted house… or a pretend real haunted house? Check out Hauntworld.com. They have a state-by-state guide to haunted houses, haunted hayrides and more fun stuff for the last night of the month.

One of our regular favorites every year at this time is Halloween.com… one of the holdes of the Oct. 31 sites. Here you can find links to Halloween screen savers for your computer desktop to give your office the proper spooky atmospheres…you can find instructions on how to make your own Halloween masks… and how to make costumes for adults and kids.

Finally, to get that Jack-o-Lantern looking properly Halloweeenish, head over to Pumpkin Carving 101 for how to select and carve your Halloween pumpkins.

Click the button in the screen below to play my NBC-TV “High Tech Talk” video.

OnBoard with OnStar

I’m not a car guy. I look at automobiles as transportation. Get me here, get me there, give me good mileage, some comfort and that’s about all I ask.

So when I leased a new Buick Lucerne, it wasn’t out of brand loyalty.

I got a good deal and the car was reasonably well-appointed, quiet, didn’t look hideous and gets me 22 m.p.h. — a lot better than the 13 I got on the Ford F-150 I turned in.

But one month into the experience, I can tell you right now that my next car will be from General Motors.

I’ll buy from GM because of OnStar.

The latest generation of OnStar — GM’s onboard safety and communications system — is far and away the most convenient, useful option I’ve ever had on a vehicle.

I’ve tried OnStar several times and walked away unimpressed.

No longer. One new feature has so won my loyalty that I can’t imagine giving it up. It’s the new turn-by-turn navigation service that GM just launched as standard in most Buicks and Cadillacs and will offer as a $100 option on other models later this year.

OnStar, including the new navigation system, is free for my first year. Afterward, with the turn-by-turn feature, it will cost $299 a year. I’ll take it.

I’ve used it probably a dozen times. Push the blue OnStar button, a live representative comes through my entertainment system speaker, greets me by name and asks how he or she can help.

I tell them I want directions, give them an address and, in seconds, they upload a route to the car radio, which then displays roads, directional arrows, mileage to the next turn and uses a computer voice to give me turn-by-turn instructions.

My first trip was on a hurried Saturday morning. I was scheduled as a speaker at a conference center in northern Oakland County and had left my house late. OnStar got me to the facility — located off a remote road.

Since then it has flawlessly directed me to offices, the homes of friends, restaurants and meeting places the whereabouts of which I had no clue.

Only once, when it had me get off westbound I-94 on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn did it goof. It told me to go straight from the exit. But the Michigan exit from I-94 has recently been reengineered. I actually had to turn right to go westbound. OnStar was clearly referencing an out-of-date map.

But it was so minor a miss that I’m not going to hold it against that nice computer voice.

And here’s another neat OnStar feature: vehicle diagnostics.

It will e-mail a free checkup report on fluid levels, tire pressure, brake condition and maintenance needs. You can also push the blue button to request a diagnostics check.

All those safety features of OnStar that we’ve heard those incessant radio advertisements extol — emergency services notification, operator checks when the air bag deploys, opening the car door if you lock the keys inside — are also great security reasons to justify that second-year renewal fee.

My one complaint with OnStar has to do with the telephone built into its control panel.

I like it. It’s truly hands-free. I’d use it all the time if GM weren’t so greedy.

You can program the OnStar phone to dial by saying a phone number and afterward, if you want to have it stored, just name it “home” and then, next time, just say “call home.” It does.

I love it.

But I can’t afford it.

Existing Verizon Wireless customers can add the OnStar phone onto another account they have and work against the minutes for the package they already pay. But those with other carriers are out of luck.

OnStar charges premium prices to get phone minutes for the car. They give you 30 free minutes to try it and offer 100 minutes for a onetime fee of $14.95 that’s good for one year. But if you plan to use the onboard phone a lot, you have to prepay a package from $13.99 for 30 minutes (about 46 cents a minute) to $299.99 for 1,000 minutes (about 30 cents a minute).

That’s highway robbery.

But the other features and especially the turn-by-turn navigation system, using global positioning satellites and seamlessly integrated with the vehicle entertainment system, make for highway peace of mind.

I’m seriously onboard with OnStar.

Early peek at Black Friday holiday shopping sites

It’s early October- barely autumn -but already the Internet is abuzz with talk of holiday shopping and Black Friday bargains.

Black Friday being the day after Thanksgiving when stores advertise their best deals for the coming holidays. But already this year, those early shoppers are targeting their merchandise.

My NBC-TV "High Tech Talk" report this week looks at the following sites:

GottaDeal Black Friday info http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/

Elmo TMX http://www.tmxtracker.com/

Fatwallet http://www.fatwallet.com

Deals of America http://www.dealsofamerica.com/

Click the arrow below to see the video.

Apple’s new iPods are just another evolutionary step

Apple’s new iPods have added new functions and elegance to the digital music experience but still seem to be transitory — considerably short of the next innovations consumers would like.

To be sure, Apple wanted new models out now, to offset the buzz sure to greet Apple’s most serious competition to date: Microsoft’s Zune player, expected to be released in time for holiday shopping.

The Zune reportedly will have a couple of features the iPod doesn’t have — like an FM radio receiver and the ability to wirelessly transfer music.

Don’t get me wrong; Microsoft isn’t going to cut iPod’s dominance anytime soon. But its entry into the field is another indication that the digital player’s evolution has only just begun.

A wish list

And I, for one, would like to have seen Apple speed it up a bit more than it did with its new slimmed-down and gussied-up Nano player and the big, beefy and now movie-playing Video iPod.

What do I want? Wireless earphones, for one. Imagine, no more tangled cords. I’d like wireless downloads and uploads of video, still pictures and music, for another. And I want something better than the iTV gizmo Apple promises for next year that will help get the downloaded video on your computer to your TV. How about direct transfer from your iPod to yourTV?

While we’re at it, let’s add a mobile phone to the iPod. I’m not talking about the dismally inadequate version Motorola has with the Rokr phone, I’m talking about an Apple-quality cell phone that holds at least as much music as the Nano does now.

This, I’m betting, is all coming. Someday.

But right now, we have the latest two iPods, run on upgraded software, and a revamped iTunes store for shopping and downloading music, TV shows and video.

The new top-of-the-line iPod is an 80GB model, priced at $349. It can hold up to 20,000 songs.

But music is not what that model is for, anyway; it’s for movies. The 80GB iPod can hold 100 hours of video — more than 50 movies, available through the iTunes store.

Movie downloads

They’re only from Walt Disney-connected movie studios now (Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on the board and the largest single stockholder in Disney), but other studios are expected.

I downloaded a movie (”The Village,” $9.95). It took about 18 minutes on my home broadband connection. I watched it. The two-and-a-half-inch screen on this new iPod is said to be 60% brighter than the old video model. I detected no difference.

But no matter how novel it is to watch a movie on an iPod, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a very tiny screen.I was pleasantly surprised by the video iPod’s beefed-up battery life. On my old video iPod, the battery was pretty much drained after watching two 40-minute TV shows. On the new model, after watching a movie that lasted one hour and 48 minutes, the battery gauge was still half-full.

Longer lives

The new iPod Nanos also have much improved battery life — about 24 hours. They come in smaller, thinner, lighter anodized aluminum cases in five colors, starting at $149 for the 2GB model up to $249 for a new 8GB Nano.

My biggest disappointment with the new Nano was that the $39 lanyard earphones I bought for my old Nano no longer fit. With both the Nano and its big 80GB Video iPodbrother, the sound quality remains as full and rich as in previous models. And with slight design improvements, the click wheel and navigation functions on the latest models are even more intuitive and comfortable.

But, still, I want more.

And more is coming. Knowing Apple, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it before Christmas, just in time to make the Zune obsolete before it’s even released.