5 Reasons to Ditch Your Cable Box or Satellite Dish

Why spend $50 to $100 a month for video entertainment when there's so much good, free stuff on the Web? Good-bye, couch potato, and hello, mouse potato.

Three Major Types of Spam

E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail, is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail.

Three Major Types of Spam

Attempts to infect your computer. These emails typically ask you to open an attachment which causes the infection, or take you to a website where the infection is downloaded.

Product sales. These are trying to entice you to buy drugs, body enhancement aids, jewelry or the like at enticingly low prices. The problem, of course, is that most are scams, or the drugs are outdated, the aids don't work and the jewelry is fake.

Phishing attempts. These are trying to entice you to provide your personal information by imitating some other legitimate site with which you may have an existing relationship. Once you give up your personal information, identity theft and credit card fraud follows.

Major Web Browsers Fail Password Protection Tests

That nifty password management feature in your favorite Web browser could be helping identity thieves pilfer your personal data.

The Radio.com

Just type in any song that was ever played, and see what happens. Then, following the end of the song, it will keep playing songs of the same era forever.
You may want to consider adding this one to your favorites!

Can I Really Get Free Satellite TV on my PC?

Everything I've read about this type of thing tells me it's a scam, or at least a waste of money. The software you get for your forty bucks is nothing more than a menu of free online television broadcasts. Most of the stations listed are foreign, and the list contains many entries that are obsolete or do not work.

Dr. Libshitz Can't Get an E-Mail Address

If there's a subset of letters in your name that looks vulgar, you could be denied an e-mail address or a domain name. Just ask Dr. Herman Libshitz.

Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail systematically abused by spammers

With the industry’s eyes constantly monitoring the usual suspects’ use of phony hosting providers, another market segment within the underground marketplace has been developing beneath the radar, aiming to build a malicious infrastructure (Spammers targeting Bebo, generate thousands of bogus accounts; Malware and spam attacks exploiting Picasa and ImageShack) through efficient CAPTCHA recognition. Read more...

The War

"American Anthem" gives voice to the sacrifice, selflessness, and bravery of those we have tried to honor, the men and women who fought and won that necessary war on our behalf.

Help -- I Can't Get Online!

So you say you can't get online, eh? It happens to all of us; Steve Bass was landlocked just last week.

There could be lots of reasons. Instead of tearing your hair out (not a good solution for me) or spending hours trying to figure it out yourself, how about trying some of this week's troubleshooting tips It may be a good idea to save Steve's newsletter (uh, offline), so you can refer back to it when disaster strikes.

Steve Bass is PC World Magazine contributing editor & columnist and my favorite tech writer. Don

Recover Lost Pics with PhotoRescue Wizard

I usually look for FREE software, but there are times....

If you've ever felt that twinge of regret the moment you hit the delete button on your digital camera, rest assured the image is probably recoverable--provided you use a tool like the $29 PhotoRescue Wizard. The utility scans the entire writable portion of your memory card and saves every recoverable byte of data to your hard drive. If there are photos on the card, it will probably be able to recover them.

Safer Shopping On The Internet

Visit trusted sites or use a third-party payment service. Many online shops and auction sites will let you pay with third-party payment services, like PayPal. That way you don't have to turn over your credit card information to an unknown person.

The Bangalore Backlash: Call Centers Return to U.S.

Dell outsources customer support to Indian call centers. That often infuriates customers. So, Dell will guarantee that you will speak with an American. And wait times are short. But you must pay.

The Best PCs for Everyone

Whether you're interested in a gaming rig, a low-priced desktop, a mainstream multimedia system, or an all-in-one PC with a built-in screen, we give you our key choices.

Whois lookup and Domain name search

If you are doing your shopping online this season, be very wary. This is the time of year when scammers notorious for taking advantage of naive online shoppers will put up junk Internet sites (domains) hoping to capture your credit card information or take your money.

If you want to find information about a retailer online, try doing a Whois search to see how long the domain has been in existence.

How to Buy a Laptop

The most highly evolved species of computer, the laptop (aka notebook) computer allows you to work without being tethered to an office. Portability and good performance make laptop PCs an essential part of the daily lives of millions of people, from college students to business travelers. Even the least-expensive of today's laptops are well equipped

Ten Stupid Things You Can Do To Mess Up Your Computer

If want to keep your computer running smoothly and avoid becoming a target for cyber criminals, here are ten things you should NOT do.

Dell: Want XP? That’ll be $150 please!

How much extra will people people pay to avoid Vista? More and more. In June, Dell (DELL) started charging customers an extra $20 to $50 for a downgrade to Windows XP. By October, Dell’s XP premium was up to $100. We checked in on Dell’s site today, and the retailer is now charging a whopping $150 for what Microsoft (MSFT) says is outdated software.

Wrong Number. From Carol Burnett.

Dave’s Top 65 Free Software Picks for Windows

Everybody likes free software. Today, it is getting to the point where you can completely use your computer without paying a nickel for software. If you use Linux, everything is free. But, even if you use Windows or Mac, you can still almost completely stock up your machine with software without paying anything at all.

In this compilation, Dave has gathered a list of my top picks for free software for Windows.