So much happens every week, and it's amazing how much we talk about computers...  OK, maybe that's because Benjamin is a NERD!!! 

Benjamin covers so much, that it's sometimes hard to keep track of it all.  One of the many things he covered was E-mails from undesirable websites, and how to stop them.  Most basic, be careful what you sign up for.  Additionally, use BCC (or Blind Carbon Copy) when you want to send to a large group of people, and encourage each of them to do the same.  Spammers will look at forwarded e-mails and will capture the addresses from there.  Also, never reply to spammers, not to complain, use an unsubscribe offer, or any of that.  Even the unsubscribe link can be used against you!

McAfee is doing some great stuff with an experiment in spam.  They found a number of volunteers, and tracked what would happen if you clicked reply, clicked on every link, etc, to every spam you got.  A recipe for disaster if you did it in real life...  Starting from zero spam, to the point where in one month, 5 people received a little over 23,000 messages. 

Benjamin touched on Killer Laser Printers (well, not as drastic as it sounds), Circuit City's green technology efforts, Polaroids new Zink (Zero Ink) process, and how to avoid scammers using something called social engineering.  He also noted that Firefox set a new record, cracking 19% market share, and that represents a comeback for Mozilla, once the KING of internet browsing, and shoved aside for Internet Explorer.  Well, it's back...

Benjamin talked about DNSStuff.com as well as www.IPtools.com (the former being a great place, but moving towards a pay model).  Benjamin also talked about a great little laptop tracker, in case your PC gets stolen...  http://adeona.cs.washington.edu is the place to get that one!  And lest we forget, a discussion of power supplies, and some of the newer things to watch for... well, check out this site for detailed information... a webpage devoted towards telling you about power supplies!

 Benjamin covered some basic monitor troubleshooting based on a contact from Jonathon.  Lorraine also wrote in and asked about various anti-virus software packages, and as promised, here are the links Benjamin mentioned...  McAfee, Trend Micro , and AVG are all fine programs, and in a recent check of McAfee since the show aired, Benjamin found it to be a little better than the other two.  Listen carefully, as Benjamin will update  you as he finds out about new things, and will tell you about the good, the bad, and the ugly of how software changes. 

Benjamin also answered Freddie who was asking about disabling his internet connection firewalls (a bad idea), and Tom who was asking about various speeds on the Internet, from cable, as well as wireless providers.  Benjamin referred Tom to the venerable http://www.speedtest.net for more testing.

Benjamin also mentioned his wife, in a quick plug for a free tool...  http://www.babelfish.yahoo.com ...  For fun, you might look at the origination of the term Babelfish as well...

Remember to tune in next week and to listen to this week’s show right now by using the links below!