This week in the helpful hints section, Benjamin gave us tips of extending the life of your laptop. For instance, max out the memory for your computer to what ever your OS will support. Memory chips can be ordered at www.crucial.com. Another thing to do is to upgrade the internal drive. For the complete list, check out the audio below!

                Benjamin also interviewed Peter Pham, CEO of www.Billshrink.com, a company dedicated to helping you save money of your bills wih “dirty little secrets the credit card and cell phone companies don’t want you to know.” These include the fact that the average user pays $3.02 per minute because they only use 32% of their minutes. Additionally, bills rarely include enough information.

                Another thing Benjamin touched on this week was the horror of internet bill caps. Fortunately, there was good news coming this time. It appears Time Warner has abandoned their plans of charging per internet usage. These plans, however, were met with extreme opposition, and have been dropped.

                 For another helpful hint, Benjamin brought us information on how to check the speed of a USB drive. Most USB’s these days advertise to be 2.0’s, but are at varying prices. So why is this? The difference is that withing “USB 2.0” there is a lot of variance in power. So, to check the actual power of your USB drive, go to www.flashmemorytoolkit.com, or www.hdtune.com.

                Benjamin also talked to Deborah Shadovitz, his Mac expert, about making web sites. Some of the programs they talked about were iWeb, Freeway, and SiteGrinder.

                Additionally, Benjamin’s been getting some questions around about how long he though XP is going to last, and he’s done some research. Turns out the British Royal Navy is running their nuclear submarines on XP… So there’s a sign for you. Netbooks currently come with XP, and probably will at least until Windows 7 comes out. Additionally, Microsoft has said it will be supported until 2014. So, all in all… XP isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

                Touching on being green, Benjamin brought us some simple ways to save the planet, like uncharging your phone charger when it’s not in use, getting eco-friendly laptop bags like the ones from Targus, and getting the Eco-button, which puts your computer into a power saving sleep mode. Check out the audio for the rest of the list!

                Lastly, Benjamin brought us a section on being green with your photos. Printing albums wastes a lot of paper, so why not do it online? If you absolutely HAVE to have a tangible copy, you can use recycled paper instead! Additionally, leaving less space between photos also saves paper. Remember: a little goes a long way!

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