Run Linux and get money back on your new PC

UK freelancer Dave Mitchell bought a new Dell laptop, replaced its copy of Windows with Linux - and got money back from Dell for never using the Microsoft OS. When he started [the computer] for the first time, he clicked the box that said "no" on the Windows licence agreement that asked him to agree to its terms. The text of this agreement states users can get a refund for the "unused products" on their new computer if they get in touch with the machine's manufacturer. He photo-documented the whole process, and wrote Dell a letter asking for his refund for the unused copy of Windows. Without argument or asking for the photos or the Windows install disc back, Dell sent Mitchell a refund for £55.23 (over 100 bucks). Mitchell said he was "pretty gob-smacked" it was so easy. — Gina Trapani

Flash Drive Problems

Flash drives are ingenious little devices. Most people are catching on to the incredible ease of use of flash drives. Heck, I have one that boots up to my favorite linux security distribution. This allows me to run an entire operating system via USB. So, even if you had Windows on your computer, I could bypass that and boot to linux - if your computer had USB booting capability. But i digress. Flash memory is great until it bombs out on you. You may get messages saying that your drive isn’t recognized or it may do nothing. What are you to do? Flash drives use the FAT file system. This makes it very readable across many different operating systems. Sometimes that file system just gets whacked out. When this happens, you errors about the medium being unreadable. Sometimes, the master boot sector of your flash drive can get hosed. This will give you messages about the drive being unformatted or it won’t read the drive. You plug in your flash drive and your computer may not detect it as a drive. Some of the tools already on this blog will help you recover data off of your flash drive. If it’s a flash card from a camera, you could try this free photo recovery software.

6 Tools to Help You Recover Data

I don’t think I have to say that data loss is everyone’s nightmare. At home, data loss could mean years worth of photos, videos, financials, and documents lost. In business, data loss means money out the window. Many times, however, you want to recover data, but you don’t want to pay the exorbitant fees that data recovery companies charge ($150-$250/hour). Let me introduce you to some free data recovery tools. 1. NTFS Reader - NTFS reader is a great little program that comes in a boot disk image. This allows you to boot from a floppy disk, read an NTFS partition, and copy the files to the floppy. This is probably the fastest way to get your files off of a non-booting NTFS partition.

2. Restoration - Restoration is a utility that allows you to recover items that were deleted out of your recycle bin. It is a very successful tool.

3. Boot Sector Recovery - Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting that boot sector back on track. This little utility simply does the job.

4. DIY DataRecovery - They have a great little repository of free utilities waiting for your perusal. DiskPatch is a great set of tools for repairing partitions, boot sectors and the like. iRecover helps recover lost data. Go check it out.

5. HDCopy - HDCopy allows you to make an exact copy of your drive. You can even push it over to another drive. Ever been stuck with too little space and you wanted to put all your stuff onto a new, huge drive? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

6. Recoverdm - Recoverdm allows you to recover disks with bad sectors. Now, having said that, it’s not for the faint of heart. You should be well versed to use this utility.

Remember, once data loss occurs, use that drive as little as possible. This keeps the sectors from being overwritten. Also, you don’t want to be turning the computer on or off, if possible. This will greatly increase your chances for recovering your valuable data.

You’re probably reading this because you have the time to do it yourself or you don’t have the money to purchase commercial data recovery software or services. Just remember, if this is your business and you have really critical data on your drive, it may be time to dig into your wallet. This is especially true if time is of the essence. Also, if your configuration involves RAID or complicated implementations, this also may be time to dish out the money.

Windows Live Hotspot Locator

Windows Live Hotspot Locator of course locates hotspots. You just put in your country, state, city, and zip code. You also put the distance and the access fee either free, paid, or both. It works very nicely and you can view the results on a map as well.

5.5 Gen. iPod and iTunes 7

Today at Apple's It's Showtime event, Apple revealed quite a bit of new stuff. To start off I'll talk a little about the 5.5 gen. iPod. The new iPod looks basically the same but it has a 60% brighter screen. The iPod also has longer battery life and new headphones. It will have gapless playback (which I think goes for all iPods as an update) and even text based search I'm really not to sure how this function works yet. iTunes 7 is now available and you can download full length movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles, Flightplan, and many more. And get this, on the 5.5 gen. iPod you can now download games at $4.99 each such as Pac-man, Tetris, Bejeweled, and more. There are many other new things in iTunes 7 so got to the iTunes 7 overview page for more info.

DiscountClick Online Marketing Services

DiscountClick is a service that helps you market your website. DiscountClick also helps you with SEO (search engine optimization) including placement in Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Netscape, Ask, and Altavista. They help you with text link advertising as well. DiscountClick has marketing charts, graphs, and keyword ranking results that find where you currently stand in all the major search engines. DiscountClick includes a Keyword Density Analyzer, Traffic Metrics, both Organic and Pay Per Click Traffic and Rank Reporting Utilities. Analyze URLs and perform effective on page SEO optimization for your website or your customers sites. They say they guarantee your satisfaction. DiscountClick charges as low as $50 a month for search engine promotion which wouldn't be too bad if you used it for a couple of months. So you might want to check this out if you'd like to get some hits to your site and get some good rankings in the top search engines.

Ask Ms. Dewey

Tired of searching via Google and getting almost instant results? sick of getting info as speed as lightning? Got some time to waste around…than this is the perfect search engine for you:

Miss Dewey

It’s annoyingly slow and made completely from Flash, you may get ecited initially with the humor and most probably with Ms. Dewey herself, but other than that it’s all pointless.

Who is the real Miss Dewey?

In real life Miss Dewey is Janina Gavankar a classically trained pianist, vocalist, and orchestral percussionist.