The outer case of these chargers is defective and can open unexpectedly causing a shocking effect. If you think you may have one of these, head over to  chargerexchange.nokia.com and enter the details in the form provided. Nokia is offering a free replacement.

Lexmark S605 All-in-One

Lexmark S605 All-in-One

This Lexmark all-in-One printer is one of the new Internet-connected printers. Not only does it print, scan, and copy, but you can get the weather, your personal calendar, or stock information on its screen. You can print photos directly from a memory card. You can automate tasks like emailing a scanned document to a certain group of people. You can even use the printer’s screen like a digital picture frame to show off your photos. It can be set to automatically print on both sides of the paper.

The printer has the best touch screen that I’ve seen on a printer. It also had very good print quality and performs all functions more than adequately. So what’s not to like?  Well — I spent several hours on the phone with Lexmark tech support to get the printer set up and wound up with the printer printing, but throwing up a Windows error every time it prints. The Internet connectivity which is accessed by mini programs that Lexmark calls Smart Solutions,  is difficult to set up and use. And not too many solutions are currently available.

However, I must give  Lexmark an A for effort. After I posted my review on Hardware Secrets, they contacted me to try to resolve the problem so that other users will not be confronted with the same errors. They have not yet notified me with the resolution, but I am sure it will be forthcoming.

Here is my summary:

The print quality and good solid print, scan, and copy functionality make this a good All-in-One. The wireless networking was easy to set up, but Lexmark obviously has some problems with their interconnectivity. While adding features and Internet connectivity is certainly admirable, the average consumer doesn’t want to spend hours on the phone with tech support to set up a new printer and certainly doesn’t want to use a printer that throws up errors every time it prints. I might have had more of a tendency to recommend this printer if their tech support could have solved our problems in a timely manner. This printer is a part of a brand new line for Lexmark and perhaps the problems that we had will be resolved, but there is no guarantee.

That said, the touch screen is superior. The interface is clear and easy. While the SmartSolutions might be a reason for a techie to purchase this printer, this technology is still in its infancy. There will have to be a lot more applications that are easier to use before the average person will want to make the leap.

While the S605’s quality and performance are excellent, the problems that came along with this printer make it difficult for me to recommend it.

Pros

• Excellent large touch screen
• Great easy-to-use interface
• Speedy printing
• Wireless networking  is easy to set up
• Customizable SmartSolution applications
• Good quality prints

Cons

• SmartSolutions difficult to configure
• Difficult to  close the touch screen
• Plagued by software/driver/connectivity problems

My full review including pictures can be found at Hardware Secrets.

Available at:

Click here for the Best Buy Homepage

Teavana is the online tea store with the best selection of flavored red teas. You can try everything from chocolate to chai or vanilla to blueberry. Right now Teavana is offering Free Ground Shipping on every order.

You will not see this offer on the Teavana website, but you can just place the tea you want to try in your cart and then use Coupon Code FBFREE to get the discount. This is good only in the US  and ends on 9/30/2009. To read more about what I like about red tea, which is also called rooibos tea, check out my Tea Lovers area.

Shop Teavana.com

The first thing that you have decide when building a website is where you want to host your site. There are many hosing sites available, so this can be a daunting experience. Don’t worry, though, the Internet can help you make that decision!

The best place to start your search is at Web Hosting Geeks. This is a website that has a myriad of independent reviews of the best web hosting providers.They offer the best in a variety of different areas like best budget hosting, best blog hosting, best E-commerce hosting and many, many more.

If you are just starting out, you can find the best web hosting sites for under $10 a month. If you already have a website and need a dedicated server, this site will give you the best options. They also have listings for vps hosting. so that if you need a Virtual Dedicated Server, you can get a level of control similar to a dedicated server at a cheaper rate.

Each of the suggested web hosting services are reviewed by people who use them. Many have hundreds of reviews that you can read. The site uses the reviews to rate each service in things like technical support, customer support, software, and other important qualities. This allows you to get a lot of great information about many different web hosting sites at a glance and you can also read all of the reviews to get in-depth information.

Whether you are looking for a web hosting site for your first website or you are trying to find a new hosting service for your old website, Web Hosting Geeks is a great place to get the scoop on where you want to place your site.

Google Chrome is a relatively new web browser that some are turning to because of its simplicity, speed, and security. Chrome has the cleanest, most uncluttered interface of any browser that I’ve seen. It also has some power features that I’ll talk about later in my full review.

Ian gave me a little insight into the goings-on at Google. They are working hard at taking Chrome to the next phase. This phase will include an extension system for Chrome. This is a system that will allow users to take the simple interface of Chrome and to add only the icons, features, and tools that they feel they will use. This is very similar to what Firefox calls “add-ons”, and it has made Firefox very useful and very popular. Firefox, however, has a pretty complex interface. When you choose additional add-ons, it can get fairly crowded-looking. With the simplicity of the Chrome interface, the addition of extensions could make it a very appealing web browser.

I’ll keep you posted as I hear more, but if they do it right, you can expect Chrome to give both Firefox and Internet Explorer a run for their money.

In the test versions that I tried, Internet Explorer 8 was flaky and unstable. Its biggest problem was that it displayed many websites incorrectly. In this version Microsoft actually adhered to more web standards than it did with previous versions, which is good. The problem, however, is that most websites were set up to display properly in previous non-standard versions of Internet Explorer and so they didn’t display correctly in IE 8. At one time, Microsoft published a list of websites that were incompatible with IE8, and that list included many large websites like Apple and the New York Times. Believe it or not, Microsoft’s own website was on the incompatible list. In test versions, my Compu-KISS website crashed the new browser. Many websites displayed with broken menus and misaligned text. In fact IE8 had so many problems with so many websites that Microsoft added a compatibility button on the right side of the address bar. This button could be used for any websites that needed compatibility with a previous version of Internet Explorer to display correctly. In test versions of IE8, I used that button a lot.

So I was totally amazed when the final version of Internet Explorer came out and most of the incapability problems were fixed. Not only do the Apple and Microsoft websites display properly, but so did  compukiss.com and other sites that were previously problematic.

Somehow Microsoft pulled off a complete turnaround. The incompatibility button is still there, but in more than a week of heavy use of the new browser, I didn’t have to use it at all. In fact, I only encountered a few minor glitches. What’s more I thoroughly enjoyed this new browser.

Microsoft has improved security with internet Explorer 8 and has also added some useful features. The first new feature is called Accelerators. In IE 8, when you highlight a word or phrase on the screen a small blue arrow appears. Click on that arrow and you can choose what you want to do with that selection. For instance, you can email it, translate it, search for it, and/or map it. This is extremely useful. Highlight an address and you can get a map in two clicks. Or you can search for the highlighted phrase without having to go to your search engine and type it in. Of course, Microsoft Maps and Microsoft Live Search are set as the defaults, but you can easily change that to other services like Google Maps or Yahoo! Search. In fact, you can easily add Accelerators to perform a variety of tasks. You can add one look up any word in a dictionary or in Wikipedia. You can get a stock quote, convert currency, get a traffic report, and much, much more.

Web Slices is another new feature. You can add a web slice to your Favorites toolbar. This allows you to keep track of a frequently updated websites. So you can easily watch any item on eBay or check a stock price. When new information becomes available from the web page you choose, it will be highlighted alerting you to the change. Although there is not a lot of support for Web Slices yet, I’m sure there will be in the future.

Like Firefox and Chrome, the Internet Explorer address bar now functions as an all-in-one location. Put in a search term and it will try to find what you are looking for. Put in an address and it will go there. It is, however, still not smart enough to know when it should add the www and the .com so that you can just type ebay or coke, and get to the right site. This is one of the things that Firefox does much better.

IE 8, however, does have a smart way of handling tabs. When you open a new tab from an existing page (right-click and say Open in New Tab) it opens directly to the right of the page you are on and it’s tab is color coded the same as the page you clicked from. These tabs form an easy-to-identify group. You can also drag a tab to a different group and it will be properly color-coded and become part of that group. Novices may not think much of this, but heavy-duty surfers who research or work with several different subjects at once will find it quite useful.

IE 8 also has the ability to reopen the last tab you’ve closed. Now if you inadvertently close a tab, you just press Ctrl-Shift-T to reopen it. You can also right-click on any tab and pick the web page that you want to reopen in the Recently Closed Tabs choice.

Internet Explorer 8 has quite a bit to offer. But some of its features may not be welcome to some. I am talking about the InPrivate browsing session which will not keep any of your surfing history. This has already become known as “porn mode”, and it is sure to be used by smart teens to cover their tracks when they visit places that mom and dad might not approve of.

I have installed IE8 on several computers including older and newer machines running Windows XP and various versions of Windows Vista. On some computers I had to turn off the anti-virus software to get a good install, other than that, IE 8 has installed and performed seamlessly. You may want to give it a try. It has some great new features and it is a free download that you can find at Microsoft’s website.

NOTE: Since this was written, many people have had trouble with IE8. Please read my article on this:

Internet Explorer 8 Causes Many Problems

The Microsoft patch was issued in October 2008, before the worm appeared. So if you did the  regular Windows updates, as you should have, you wouldn’t have to worry about Conficker. The problem is that it is estimated that 30% of the active computers in the world have not yet installed this free patch from Microsoft. These are the computers that have been and are still getting infected by Conficker.

Conficker also spreads by USB flash drives and by cracking network passwords and this television coverage made no mention of that.

I also encourage everyone to install a good antivirus software, but installing the Windows updates in a timely manner is just as important as using antivirus software.

Yes, Conficker is a very smartly written worm and it employs some new techniques that are posing real headaches for security companies. Yes, it is potentially very dangerous. But why not tell people how they can avoid it.  I can’t believe that with all the IT people that CBS employs, they couldn’t do a better story than this!! But then, they also said that the CBS computer network had become infected by Conficker. Perhaps they are simply that stupid!!

Read more of my Conficker coverage:

The Conficker Worm — Make Sure You Are Protected

Keep Conficker Away – Scan USB Devices Automatically

Conficker — How to Tell if Your Computer is Infected

Conficker — What to Do if Your Computer is Infected

SPECIAL NOTE: QuickBooks has a limited time offer for QuickBooks Pro at 40% off with free shipping and 1 month free support. Click the logo below for this great deal.


If you use a Mac, the same great deal is available for the Mac Version of QuickBooks 2009.

QuickBooks 2009 keeps the standard QuickBooks well-designed, intuitive interface, and ease of installation, and adds some new features. The new features are well done and they improve the product without adding complexity. This is a good model for other software manufacturers. I especially wish that Microsoft would take note of it.
For me, the most valuable of these new QuickBook features is the Company Snapshot which gives an overview of all your business’s vital statistics on a single-screen. It is a useful tool to get a quick look at the overall health of the company without getting lost in the daily bookkeeping details.

Online banking tools have also been improved. Depending on your bank setting, this up may be simple or a bit of a pain. The best part, however, is that QuickBooks is so ubiquitous that all banks work hard at working well with the QuickBooks program.

QuickBooks 2009 has added a Live Community feature that can be accessed right from the program. This allows you to ask questions and get answers as you work. The value of this feature is hit and miss. We asked four questions. Two were answered fairly promptly. Two were totally unanswered.

This year’s QuickBooks also has support for international payments. It supports most of the world currencies. It also has better client data-review tools for accountants. Another added feature is that QuickBooks now comes with a free Web site for one year. After that Intuit charges $4.99 a month. Although you only get a few pages, Intuit has made the Website easy to set up and you can easily make it very professional looking using their built-in templates and tools.
I tested the $400 QuickBooks Premier, but most companies will find the $200 Pro version adequate for their needs. You can also purchase Pro or Premier versions for up to five simultaneous users. The Premier edition adds the ability to create business plans, to forecast sales and expenses, and to create special industry-specific chart of accounts and reports.

Although I have concentrated on the new features in QuickBooks 2009, new users to QuickBooks will find that it handles all the accounting needs of a small business, including printing checks, paying bills and tracking expenses, managing payroll, handling payroll taxes and sales taxes, creating invoices, and creating estimates. It also has professional-looking forms and business reports.

QuickBooks 2009 remains the best accounting program for small businesses, but it has a few drawbacks. The biggest is that there is no free support for setup issues. Although I installed it on several computers with no problem, I have been a QuickBooks user for years and am quite used to the program. A complete accounting neophyte might need some help and I wish that Intuit would at least offer free support for the first 30 days.

Also, in my testing, I received a consistent error on three different Vista 64-bit machines when trying to perform reconciliations. The program seems to always hang when it tries to write a PDF file, which it tries to do during the reconciliation process. I found no help at the Intuit website, but I did find a work-around at a Site called Practical QuickBooks. Please note that this problem only occurred on Vista 64-bit computers. QuickBooks 2009 ran fine on Windows XP or Vista 32-bit computer. Hopefully, Intuit will fix this Vista 64-bit problem soon.

Other than that one glitch, I can highly recommend QuickBooks 2009 as a great full-featured small business accounting program.