Category Archives: Useful websites

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Guide: Stay legal online – top tips!

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With one of the top legal problems being illegal downloads over the internet, you need to be aware of what could happen if your internet connection is tracked down as being illegal. It could go as far as court, and if you (being the bill payer) are found guilty of running illegal downloads of your internet connection you could be subject to thousands (if not millions) of pounds in fines. It doesn’t have to be you downloading the illegal files – it could be a family member, a friend using your wi-fi, or somebody in your neighbourhood stealing your wi-fi connection. And as far as ISPs are concerned, it is your problem – no matter who actually downloaded the illegal content.

So, to make your life a little easier and to avoid the risk of ending up in court, GEEK! has compiled some top tips to stay legal online…

  • Make sure your wi-fi is secured – you don’t want people stealing your wi-fi and downloading illegal files without you being aware of it. Remember, it’s your problem even if somebody else downloading something illegal on your network. You can easily secure your wi-fi network with a password by going to your router configuration. You’ll probably need to refer to your router’s instruction manual, but it should only be a 5-10 minute job.
  • Check that yourself or other family members aren’t illegally downloading. Check computers in your home – if any of them have programs such as Limewire or Vuze installed, users of that computer may well be downloading illegal files such as music or films. Teenagers are the most common users of illegal filesharing software so make sure you check their computer systems. Ask your family members where they are getting their music from. If they are purchasing it from stores such as iTunes, 7digital or Napster they are OK, but if they are downloading it from illegal P2P (peer to peer) software you are at risk.
  • Actively encourage your family members that copyrighted content should be paid for. Remind them that illegally downloading copyrighted music and video is the same as shoplifting sweets. It might only be an 80p song they are downloading for free, but the consequences of that could be immense.
  • Remember that downloading commercial software via P2P software is also illegal.
  • Avoid Bittorrent software/sites. Although some of the content on Bittorrent sites is legal, the majority of it isn’t. Any copyright music, video, TV shows, films, software (etc) that is download from bittorrent could result in legal issues so it’s best to just avoid P2P altogether. In addition, constantly using P2P software is likely to result in problems with your ISP (internet service provider) as P2P uses large amounts of bandwidth very quickly.
  • Buy your music, TV shows and films legally. If you want to get your music and video online legally, the best way of doing so if using services such as iTunes, 7digital or Napster (all of these are legal – including Napster as it was made legal many years ago). If you’re not sure how to get your digital content legally, just go to a high street shop and purchase it there. There are still tonnes of high street stores selling digital content and it is the best way to get legal content as you can be 100% sure that what you are buying has been paid for properly.
  • Don’t have a credit card to purchase content online? There’s plenty of ways around that. For example, you can purchase iTunes gift cards from most digital content stores with cash, which you simply redeem at home with your iTunes account. You are then free to spend whatever gift card you buy on whatever you want. In addition, 7digital offers pay by SMS which allows you to redeem vouchers for songs online – this is perfect if you are under 18 years of age.

Those tips are the best ways to avoid legal trouble with your internet connection. Use them well and remember that you only have to download illegal content once to end up in trouble.gui

I never realised Google Picasa was so good!

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A couple of days ago I was just trundling through my day-to-day tasks on my computer, and then I noticed that I ought to organise and backup my photos on my computer. I do actually have rather a lot of photos – believe it or not, I do manage to get outside and have some great times that need to be captured and saved for later.

So, thinking that this could take a while manually using Windows Explorer, I decided to download Picasa. And when I installed, I was gobsmacked at what this free software was capable of.

Immediately when Picasa starts it will ask to search for any pictures on your hard drive, which I told it to do. Picasa very quickly scans your drive for any photos and then archives them in date order.

After about 5 minutes I had a whole archive of photos ready to sort out. Within Picasa I could easily delete photos I didn’t want, and create my own photo albums for pictures I do want.

The brilliant thing is I can get Picasa to back up all my photos to my Network Drive right away, and if I want to share my photos with friends and family it is even easier! I can upload my photos to Picasa Web Albums in minutes and I can either choose whether I want my photos public or just open to specific friends.

It works so seamlessly and effectively, I love it. I would probably pay for it if I had to, but it is even better that Picasa is free – as with most Google software.

TVCatchup.com – Watch live freeview TV online for free!

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I just randomly found a fantastic free service. It’s called TVCatchup – bit of an odd name for a service that isn’t a catchup service. EDIT: One of the moderators has let me know that they are planning to add in recording capabilites in the future – looking forward to that.

It allows you to stream all of the freeview channels available in the UK for free. You can watch every free-to-air channel online, using the helpful online service. It even has a simple but useful EPG that runs in your web browser.

The service, predictably, is only for use in the UK. However, it works anywhere in the UK that can get a broadband connection, so if you’re in an area where Freeview/digital signal is poor, this service is a godsend! If you don’t have a TV license, it’s probably a bad idea to use the site, too. TVCatchup has said it will not actually police this.

You simply sign up for a free account and you’re off. Watch whatever channel you want whenever you want. The only thing you have to be careful of is your bandwidth limit – this will quickly chew up your bandwidth – so if you’re on a tight limit, I wouldn’t recommend prolonged viewing.

There is a short advertisement when you start a channel, but as far as I know that is all (with exception to adverts shown on TV channels).

I think it only works on some ISPs. Me, being on Tiscali (don’t ask why), miraculously it works. The service will tell you on signup if your ISP is not supported. TVC has told me that it is peered with all ISPs – I’m not totally sure what this means, but presumably there are few (if any) ISPs that actively block usage of TVCatchup.

This really is a fantastic service. I can now get all the channels I don’t get on Freeview, online. If you want to see for yourself, get a free account at www.tvcatchup.com.

VirtuaWin – Run multiple desktops on one system

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Ever had that problem when you’ve got loads of programs open at one time – so many that you can’t remember which one you need to be using?

Here’s a solution – its called VirtuaWin. It means you can basically have more than one desktop running at one time. It’s actually very similar to a system in Linux which allows you to run multiple desktops, but it looks like somebody wanted to have this ability in Windows.

Anyway, it runs on most versions of Windows (although its a little bit buggy in Windows 7 at this time – the site doesn’t claim it works in Windows 7 anyway) and installation is very simple.

Once you’ve got it set up, it’ll start you off with four desktops. If you want more than that you simply double click the icon in the notification area (a green window like icon with one yellow square). and play with the desktop configuration (see here).

To switch desktops, you can simply use the hotkeys automatically assigned by the program. Use the Winkey (windows logo key on your keyboard) and whatever letter that corresponds. For example, to go to the desktop on the left, simply do Winkey + L. For right, Winkey + R. To go down a dekstop its Winkey + D, and to go up a desktop its Winkey + U. You can customize these hotkeys in the configuration (see here).

It’s actually a very handy program if you use lots of programs at one time. Once you’ve used it, you’ll see why it is so useful.

If you’d like to try it, you can get it free from the official VirtuaWin sourceforge page.

Fed up of constantly organising RSS feeds?

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If you’re the kind of person who has tonnes of RSS feeds lurking around in your bookmarks, it can be a real pain trying to keep up to date with all the sites you know and love.

If you have this problem, Google Reader might be the answer to your problems. It’s a free service that you can dump all your RSS feeds in and it will look after them for you. To get the latest on all your feeds, you just go to the Google Reader site, log in, and all your feeds are together and ready for you to catch up on whenever you want to.

It remembers what feeds you’ve already read so you don’t waste time reading feeds you already know about. Also, another handy feature is being able to “star” posts that you particularly like so they’re easily accessible in the future.

It’s a really simple but handy idea. Best of all, it’s accessible anywhere in the world on any computer since it’s online.

I’ve known about it for ages, but I thought I’d talk about it since I find it so handy and use it daily. Check out Google Reader now – it’s free and so great to use.