This week on Computer Talk Radio, Benjamin discussed Microsoft service packs. Microsoft is ending support for Microsoft 2000 (a program that’s 10 years old) and Vista’s new Service Pack is out. Make sure you stay up to date on all of these!

Additionally, Benjamin talked about computing for children. You need to set up rules with your children. Also, a good filter like SafeEyes (from www.internetcafety.com) always helps. Computers should even be left in a family area. Also, you probably shouldn’t get your child a laptop, because they might break them. There are a lot of factors to be thought about here.

Benjamin also talked about scams, because, sadly, there are a lot of those. E-mails frequently come in asking for people’s personal information, usually to give you money. They say they’re your bank, or secret shoppers, or lotteries, or whatever. These are scams! Ignore them, avoid them, delete them.

Later, Benjamin talked about Light Scribe, a service done by HP, which helps you personalize your CD’s. Using your regular CD burner, you can actually etch a label into the CD after you flip it over. This is really cool, but sadly very un-common.

Another interesting thing is that the Toyota Prius is going to be getting a software service pack. Hopefully, they won’t move forward so much anymore. Also, there are rumors about a webcam in the iPad, but we’ll see how that pans out.

Also, Benjamin talked about http://ping.windowsdream.com/, a website with a software that helps you back-up and restore your computers. There is both a free version and a paid version.

Benjamin also talked about More’s Law, which is much better than Murphy’s Law. This says that every 18 months, computer processing power doubles. WOW! That’s pretty awesome! That means that after a few years you can get a more powerful computer for the same price or less than what you got your current computer at.

When Benny came on this week, he also brought on Art from CarMD (http://www.carmd.com/). This company creates a tiny little device at plugs into your computer and gives it a check-up. Not only does it tell you what the problem is, but it tells you how much it will cost to fix it too.