If you are looking to bring the sound of the theatre home to your media room, you may have thought it too expensive an endeavor. Today I am going to give you some pointers on how to get that great sound experience at home, while not breaking the bank.

 Home theatre surround sound can be very expensive, especially if you are purchasing a really high quality system. This isn’t to say that you can’t find a decent surround sound system for a small space and a small price. In fact, there are many ways in which you can buy a decent surround sound system for a small room even if you are limited by budget constraints. Let’s go over some of the ways you can find a surround sound system without paying the hefty retail price.

eBay Heaven

Shopping for a second hand system from Ebay carries some degree of risk but can save you a lot of money, if you use good judgment and search for a reputable seller. There are some people who simply can’t stand to have a piece of technology that is 6 months or even 6 days old. Their loss is your gain. You can score a really nice surround sound system, speakers included, at an amazingly low price. If the bidding works in your favor and you know a little about brands and quality you can actually walk away with a steal of a deal.

Buy Equipment Locally

Pawnshops and electronics consignment stores are other good places to find bargains on home theatre systems and surround sound components. Always ask if the pawn shop carries any kind of guarantee or at least will hook up the system and let you see first hand that everything is in working condition.

While you are shopping for your second-hand system don’t forget the classified shopper papers and your local newspaper classifieds. Great bargains can be found in these papers and they should always be utilized when shopping around for the best deal.

I also recommend seeing what local retail competition has to offer; you’ll be amazed at some of the wonderful bargains you can find by walking into a store on any given day. I know that stores like Circuit City have great bargains on featured items during the week, in order to boost sales. You never know when one of those items might be an outstanding surround sound systems or a phenomenal set of speakers.

Boxed Sets Can Save You Cash

I’m typically opposed to buying boxed sets when it comes to electronics. There have been many instances in the past where this was merely a method of pawning off inferior goods on an unsuspecting public. However, big names such as Bose have crossed over to the “dark side”, so to speak, and are beginning to offer high quality boxed sets at surprisingly reasonable price tags. There are cheaper brands than Bose of course, don’t get me wrong, I just use Bose as an example of the quality you can find in boxed sets in today’s marketplace. The good news is that you can get really good prices on speaker systems such as this if you are willing to take the time and shop around.

Always Compare Prices

It really does pay, in this day and age to do your comparison shopping. Even if you have a favorite retailer, chances are that you could get a better price by doing a simple search online. It might be well worth your while to go with the online retailer and save your hard earned money for the DVDs and music with which to enjoy your new surround sound system.

When All Else Fails, Wait it out

If you have your heart set on one surround sound system and nothing else will do, then it may be in your best interest to wait until the price drops. I would never advise purchasing electronics on credit because of the instant depreciation of value once the item leaves the showroom floor.

Great deals can be had by waiting about 6 months or until the next consumer expo event (this is when all the new technology is introduced, which makes all the existing technology drop in price in order to seem more appealing to consumers).  This option may seem unappealing, but can mean very real and very significant savings on your part if you are willing to wait in order to get what you really want. Not only does this give you time for the price to decrease but also for the size of your savings to increase.

While shopping on a budget isn’t always the most fun method, it is the smartest method. It is very possible to get an awesome home theater or surround sound system for your home while staying within your predefined spending limits…Just Use Your Head.

Hope this helps you in your quest for a better movie viewing experience. If you would like to read all of my past articles and some exclusive online content, visit my blog at http://www.plaintechtalk.com/blog .

If you are experiencing a sluggish, slow starting computer, give my service a try at http://www.comprevive.com or give me a call at 423-613-5590. If you are out of area, you can call toll free at 1-800-935-7220.

To your computing success,

Nathan Hull

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How to Identify a ‘SPOOF’ Email

I am sure you have heard the saying “Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that

they are not out to get you.” This phrase rings true when it comes to protecting your I.D.,

especially online.

Along with the convenience of the internet has come a new wave of predators looking to steal from innocent victims. This often occurs through ‘spoof’ emails.

A ‘spoof’ email is an email that appears to be from a legitimate organization or business – often banks or service providers – but is really a fake email sent from a con artist.

These thieves construct emails that use the logos and styles of the bank or business and attempt to convince the recipient to reply or click on a link to a website and submit personal and financial information that can be used to commit identity fraud.

While these emails are extremely common they can be difficult to identify unless you know what to look for. Here are some signals that an email may be a fraud as well as some general warnings about dealing with ‘spoof’ emails.

They Don’t Use Your Name

Spoof emails will likely not have your name in the message. They may be addressed ‘Dear Customer’, ‘Member’, ‘Friend’ or other ambiguous title. Real emails from institutions or business you have accounts with will use your name or a name you created for your account.

They Ask For Your Account Number

Companies that you have done business with will have account numbers and passwords on file. If you are ever contacted by a business that asks you to verify your account number or password do, not respond. Only give information to businesses if you have initiated the contact.

Improper Grammar or Spelling Errors

A surprising amount of these ‘spoofs’ will have grammar or spelling errors. Whether this is because the con artist is not a native English speaker or it was done in a hurry is immaterial. A legitimate business email will not likely have these glaring errors.

You Receive Warnings to Close Your Account

Often the ‘spoof’ email takes the form of a warning that your account has been illegally accessed, that you have been a victim of fraud or that your account will be closed unless you respond to the email. They will ask you to click on a link in the email and verify your information. In reality you are giving the information to the thief who will use it to access your real accounts.

Always be suspicious of emails that ask for personal information. Contact the business through their official website and find out how to forward the fraudulent email to them. If you have opened any links or provided personal information you should immediately contact the business about the account and watch for unauthorized activity. Change all passwords or close the accounts and open new ones with different access codes.

‘Phishing’ Emails

I have written about this subject in the past but it is worth going over again. ‘Spoofs’ are also called ‘phishing’ emails. ‘Phishing’ refers to any email that attempts to get you to share personal or financial information that can be used to commit fraud.

While ‘spoofs’ pretend to be a known business or institution, ‘phishing’ emails also include offers to collect prizes, requests for help, charity donations or false notices that you have won a lottery or a trip. They tell you that to reserve your prize you must give them a credit card number for verification or as a deposit.

Some emails request your help by offering you a portion of a fund that will be deposited into your bank account. These are often sent as requests from rich foreign (particularly Nigerian) nobility or government officials. They are dangerous groups and should never be contacted or replied to.

Similar scams are also done over the telephone and are called ‘pretexting’. Always contact the organization or business directly if you are contacted for charitable donations or account information.

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression and make you think I am anti-online

marketing. In all actuality the exact opposite is true. As a matter of fact, the biggest part

of my income is derived from internet marketing. With all of the safeguards put in

place to protect you online, it can be safer at times, shopping online rather then off. I

mean where is the security in handing a server in a restaurant your credit card?

In closing, just use common sense and play it safe but don’t go crazy with it and throw

your computer out the window in fear of someone swiping your information.

If you fear that your computer has been compromised or is sluggish or just plain “acting

funny”, visit my website at http://www.comprevive.com . You can reach me by phone at

423-613-5590  Toll Free 1-800-935-7220.

To read my past articles online you can visit my blog at http://www.plaintechtalk.com/blog .

To Your Online Success,

Nathan Hull

Search Engines Are Very Important

Search engines are what we use to find the things we are looking for while online. When a topic is typed for search, nearly instantly, the search engine will sift through the millions of pages it has indexed and present you with ones that match your topic. The searched matches are also ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first.

Search engines attract more visitors to websites than anything else so some commercial sites will rank higher in the search index then some content sites because of keyword bloating. There are some advanced ways to search using search engines that can help you avoid most of the commercial offerings. The best way to learn how to do an advanced search is by utilizing one of the popular search engines and typing in the search bar “advanced web search”.

Surveys find that a when customers want to locate a website for information or to buy a product or service, they find their site in one of the following ways:

• The first option is they find their site through a search engine.
• Secondly they find their site by clicking on a link from another website or page that relates to the topic in which they are interested.
• Occasionally, they find a site by hearing about it from a friend or reading in an article and typing the actual URL in the address bar of the web browser.

As a matter of fact, the most popular way to find a site, by search engine, represents more than 90% of online users. In other words, only 10% of the people looking for a website will use methods other than search engines.

All search engines employ a ranking algorithm and one of the main rules in a ranking algorithm is to check the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Don’t forget that algorithms also give weightage to link population (number of web pages linking to a site). With better knowledge of search engines and how they work, you will soon be on your way to becoming a web search expert.

Getting to Know Search Engines and Crawlers

You really need to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the person initiating a search.   

Search Engines use spiders to index websites. When someone submits website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index that site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spiders visit a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site’s Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects to. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link they have on their website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on each site so not all information will be available through the search engine!

The spider will periodically return to the sites to check for any information that has changed. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine.

A spider is almost like a book. It contains the table of contents, the actual content and the links and references for all the websites it finds during its search, and it may index up to a million pages a day.

Examples: Google, Yahoo. MSN, Lycos ,AltaVista etc..

When you ask a search engine to locate information, it is actually searching through the index which it has created and not actually searching the Web. Different search engines produce different rankings because not every search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.

One of the things that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency and location of keywords on a web page. It can also detect artificial keyword stuffing or spamdexing. The algorithms also analyze the way that pages link to other pages on the Web. By checking how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about and if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page.

This should help you on your quest for more internet knowledge. Getting to know how things work can help you better understand how to use these things to your advantage. As stated earlier, take the time to learn about advanced searching techniques. It may take some time to learn these new strategies, but it will save you hours in the long run, of trodding through endless irrelevant sites looking for that key piece of information you’re hunting.

You can read all of my past articles plus more at http://www.plaintechtalk.com/blog . If you are experiencing a slow starting problem prone computer, please give my service a try at http://www.comprevive.com or give me a call locally at 423-613-5590 or out of area toll-free at 1-800-935-7220 .

I have released a couple of new video tutorials from an associate of mine at http://www.plaintechtalk.com/ezvideoseries that will help you set up a blog with membership capabilities and also teach you how to set up an automatically updating blog.

Have a great week and I will see you next time at Nathan’s Plain Tech Talk.

Due to some requests I got through email, I am going to try and offer more game reviews in my articles. I will start this week by giving you the low-down on a popular free online game called Gunz the duel.

If you are interested in a fun and free MMORPG (Massive multiplayer online role playing game), then you should try out Gunz the Duel at www.ijji.com or www.gunzonline.com . Be warned that this game is not intended for young children. Gunz does include animated violence.

To play Gunz you must pick which website you would like to download the game from. You must take the time to fill out the form and register an account. Next you have to download the game. This file size is about 192 MB so make sure you allow some time for this download. If you are on dial-up you may want to use a download manager or avoid this game altogether.

Creating Your Character

Gunz is a 3-D MMORPG third person shooter. You get to pick from a male or female character and hundreds of armor and weapon combos!

There are many choices when it comes to your character’s physical appearance. Your armor choices vary from casual, to samurai. You can also buy gloves, shirts, pants, shoes and hats and you can mix and match your armor and clothes to acquire the perfect style for your character.

Improving Your Character

Gunz the Duel doesn’t have a unique leveling system, but it does give you the ability to level up. You increase in levels by gaining experience from killing enemies. Leveling up, gives you the ability to buy new and unique armor and weapons.

Shotguns, pistols, sub machine guns, automatic rifles, swords, kodachis (twin swords) and daggers are just a few of the weapons available.

Game Play

It takes a totally new approach to third person shooter combat by employing gravity defying acrobatic moves and a big variety of play styles. You can play in the always popular Death Match (free for all-everybody vs. everybody), Team Death match (team fight with Red vs. Blue), Assassinate (there is a designated leader which must be killed by the opposing team to win), Gladiator (free for all swordfight), Team Gladiator (team swordfight with Red vs. Blue), Duel (1 vs. 1) Quest (epic battle versus monsters instead of players), and last but not least there is Berserker (which is a death match with one designated player which must be killed to keep the match going).

Graphics

The graphics are very good for this type of game. Muzzle flashes, bullet holes and casing all look very realistic. The generated maps are great gaming areas and enhance the overall feel of the game. The maps all feature dynamic lighting which really adds to the atmosphere and a there is a shader option that can be turned on or off, it doesn’t work for all computers though. The characters hands are a bit blocky but the character models are still pretty good. The facial features look ok and the people look pretty realistic. The gun models are rendered nicely but look a bit similar to each other. All of the acrobatic moves are spectacular and are what makes this game so much fun. It’s like being in a fast paced John Woo action movie.

Last thoughts

Overall this is a fun game with very nice action elements and graphics as well as great game play. I really don’t understand why this game is offered for free because it is a lot better then most games you have to buy or pay monthly fees for.

(There is an online shop that is accessible if you download the game from www.ijji.com where you can use real money to buy special accessories, guns and armor, but it is unnecessary for game play.)

Have fun with this game and as stated before, not Intended For Young Children Due To Animated Violence.

I would like to thank Xzavier Hull and Barry Clark for play testing this game and giving me the low-down on it. If you need any advice or help with this game you can email Xzavier at xmanhull@hotmail.com

If you have something you would like to see in Nathan’s Plain Tech Talk just shoot an email to xrah2@bellsouth.net . You can read all my past articles at http://www.plaintechtalk.com and pick up a copy of my new Video Series on Wordpress Blogs at http://www.plaintechtalk.com/ezvideoseries .

If you are experiencing a slow starting sluggish computer give me a call at 423-613-5590 or toll free at 1-800-935-7220. You can check us out online at http://www.comprevive.com .