Got a MAC? Get some more Money....   

Mac users who use the travel website Orbitz are shown different and sometimes more expensive travel options than shoppers using Windows, according to The Wall Street Journal.  The paper says Orbitz found Mac users spend as much as 30 percent more a night for hotels.

Now, the online travel agency is trying to use visitor information and track their online activity to try and boost sales.  

"Mac users probably have a little more disposable income than most, so if they're buying a more expensive hotel, certainly you want to show them those hotels up front," says travel expert Rick Seaney of Farecompare. Hmmm.   

Laptop Fire Warning    

A client of mine recently came very close to burning down his home, saved only by a nearby fire extinguisher. Laptops have all the same parts inside of them as their full size desktop brothers and sisters. Further, all computers produce substantial heat, require heat dissipation and have a variety of mechanisms including fans and heat sinks to accomplish this.

Laptops, smaller and more compact, have less room inside for that cooling air to move around and do its job. So what happens when you put that laptop on the carpeting, leave it on the bed, on some sort of cloth or other air-choking surface? You block the fans, the vents and worse yet, you wind up sucking in tiny carpet fibers and the like into those ducts. The next thing you know, your computer and even the house just might be on fire. At the very least, you will shorten the laptop's life. So take appropriate precautions. 

Free Anti-Virus Update  

Which one? Up front, let me say, that regardless of the ratings, they will all do just fine and I personally like Microsoft Security Essentials the best, if only for the fact that Microsoft does not push a yearly product upgrade and there is no paid version.

Don't necessarily run out and install another product. But if you're installing new or replacing, here are recent ratings: As always, click on the link to download the product.  

In the lead with "Superior Performance" evaluation AVG Anti-Virus 2012 and Avast Free Antivirus 7.   

Next with a "Very Good" ratings were everybody else; Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5, Avira Free Antivirus 2012, Microsoft Security Essentials, PC Tools Antivirus free 2012 and Comodo Internet Security Premium 5.9.

Make sure to download only the free version. All of these companies but for Microsoft, will try to get you to buy the paid upgrade, either now or at some point moving forward; Don't get sucked in.

You go to shut down your computer in Windows 7 (Vista too), and you  see that, by now familiar, yellow shield symbol alongside the shut down button indicating that an update would be applied before shutdown takes place. But you can't wait. Previous iterations of Windows allowed you to choose not to install the update just now. Here's how in Windows 7:

Press the <ALT> <F4> keys simultaneously, you might have to do this multiple times, each time closing one open application window, until you see a drop down window come up with shutdown choices. Select the plain old shutdown.