Many of you probably know/used to be/are AOL users that were in the same boat. I personally believe that you should NEVER use an email address that has been issued by your ISP. Using an ISP’s email address will either keep you locked into using them for service or force you to get a new address when you leave.

Okay, so what should you do? My personal email is handled by Gmail. Gmail is a great free service that is ad supported. Yahoo and Hotmail are also good services that I use. These are all large companies that will most likely continue to support email for years to come. The downside to using these services is the loss of privacy. To varying degrees these companies are keeping tabs on not only who you correspond with but what is in each email you send and receive. I have no problem with this, in Gmail it allows me to see ads that I may actually have an interest in rather than random advertising being displayed.

Solution Number Two: Get your own domain name and email hosting. This sounds expensive but you can do it for less than $20 a year. This option guarantees that no matter what happens, you are in charge of your email and your privacy.

If you are thinking about getting a free web based email account my favorite service is Google followed by Yahoo and then Hotmail. For a custom domain, you should take a look at GoDaddy. If you want to throw in a website with that domain name I recommend Hostgator.

To get started “left click” on the clock in the bottom right hand corner of your screen. Then select “Change date and time settings…”

Next go to the “Additional Clocks” tab. Click on “Show this clock” and then set the time zone. You can also apply a custom name to this clock. Click “Apply” and then “Ok.”

You should now have a secondary clock/date when you hover over the time.

Most states have a website such as the one above, be careful though, there are several sites operating as middle men for companies and they tack on a fee to provide you with a list. Take ten minutes and do a google/bing/yahoo search and see what you come up with.

I binged my professor and the results were interesting!

Are you confused or wondering what I am rambling on about? Well, I am just replacing terms we would normally use such as googled or google with binged and bing. Why would I do such a thing?  Bing is a new search engine that Microsoft is working on and it looks very interesting. Yes, MS actually has a product other than Windows 7 that appears to be something to get excited about.

The Bing service is not active yet but this video will give you an idea of what is in store for us.

The following is an email that MS CEO Steve Ballmer sent out to employees yesterday morning.

Today, at the D Conference in Carlsbad, CA, I’m announcing the release of Bing, our new search engine. This is an important milestone for Microsoft as search is a critical business for us and Bing is a significant step forward in redefining search and expanding our share of the online advertising market. But Bing is just the start. We know this is a journey that will require a long-term commitment to hard work and investment in innovation in order to be successful.

We have always believed that search offers huge opportunities for innovation. Currently, only one in four searches succeeds on the first try. And while search is pretty good for navigating the Web, it’s not good at helping people use the Web to accomplish more complicated decision-based tasks.

With Bing, our goal is to do more than just make it easier for people to find information. Today, we’re delivering a powerful set of tools that will enable people to make faster, more informed decisions.

In short, Bing is a decision engine that goes beyond what people have come to think of as search—and what our competitors offer today.

A new search product requires a name that clearly signals the arrival of something unique. We chose Bing because it’s short, memorable, and symbolic of the moment when information and opportunity come together and a simple search becomes an engine for taking action.

Today, we’ll begin launching Bing internally so Microsoft employees can have an exclusive preview. You’ll find improvements that showcase innovative engineering work, including tools that automatically organize, refine, and anticipate searches. We’re also delivering strong innovation in shopping, local search, travel, and health—the areas where people want to use the Web to help them make decisions that are important to their lives.

Next week, Bing will go live outside Microsoft at bing.com. I urge you to let your friends and family know that we have created a powerful new search engine that brings fresh innovation to their Web experience.

When Bing goes live you can find it on the web at http://www.bing.com

Google News Timline can be found on the web at http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com

Google recently announced updates and improvements to the Chrome web browser. I have had Chrome installed since the first day it came out and use it from time to time but Firefox is still my browser of choice. I have been playing with it though and have noticed that it is very responsive and is actually a pleasant user experience and according to TechPost stats 7.8% of the visitors to this site are using Chrome. Below is a post from the official Google blog.

We introduced Google Chrome back in September, and it’s received a great response so far. Since launching, we’ve been working hard on adding the top requested features and making Google Chrome even faster.

Today, we are updating to a new version of Google Chrome that is faster than ever. JavaScript-heavy web pages will now run about 30% faster. See the chart below or compare scores yourself.

Additionally, we’ve added some useful features like form autofill, full screen mode, and the ability to remove thumbnails from the New Tab page.

If you’re already using Google Chrome, you’ll be automatically updated with these new features soon. If you haven’t downloaded Google Chrome, get the latest version at google.com/chrome.

OpenDNS is a service that routes all the DNS requests from your network instead of using the service that your ISP provides. Setup is very easy to do and can be accomplished in less than 5 minutes.

To get started go to www.opendns.com and register for a free account. This is very simple and straightforward, the second step is the most complex part of this process.

After you have registered you need to log into your router and change the Static DNS 1 and Static DNS 2 to the ip addresses provided which are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. Save your new settings and you are done. During the sign up process you can review instructions on how to do this with your specific router.

You may find that some sites you visit are now being blocked but you can easily go into the Dashboard at the opendns.com site and make changes until you find a good balance.

OpenDNS can be found on the web at http://www.opendns.com/

In the folder that your images have been downloaded to you will see a list like this.

The next thing you want to do is select all the pictures. You can select all the files by holding down the left mouse button and dragging a window over all the files.

Once the pictures have been selected hit the F2 key on your keyboard. You will see that all the files are no longer selected and the first file is ready to be renamed. In this case we had a few pictures from a baseball game so we named the first picture “baseball” and hit Enter. All the pictures after the first one were named baseball plus 2, 3, 4 and so on automatically.

We just used image files as an example but you can use this for any type of files that you need to manage.

For example: My wife and I have a washing machine that would not drain. The warranty was expired and due to our new zealous attitude about not spending money I decided to try and fix it myself. The first think I did was hit google and then yahoo and it seemed that I was going to have to buy a new pump but that was not 100% clear.  I then remembered reading a post over on Get Rich Slowly and that led me to JustAnswer. After signing up I was talking back and forth with an expert and he actually had the idea to check the inside of the pump for a sock. Thirty minutes later I had the pump in my hand and sure enough one of my sons tiny socks was jammed inside the pump. Total repair cost was $10, the amount I offered the experts to handle my dilemma.

JustAnswer is a community of experts that offer advice or knowledge on a varity of subjects ranging from taxes to car repair. The process is very simple. Ask a question, create an account, determine how much you want to spend and then wait for an answer. In our case the expert requested more information and one of the questions was whether we washed small items or had a child in the house. The website claims the process can take minutes to a few hours. We had an acceptable answer within 5 minutes.

If you would like to give JustAnswer a try they can be found on the web at http://www.justanswer.com