Vipre Antivirus

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of GFI for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I've been using Vipre Antivirus on my computer for a while now.  It was really easy to download and install right from their website.  Here's a screenshot from my computer while I was installing it:

There was a lot of helpful information as Vipre installed, and then it did a quick scan of my computer while i was installing.  I don't guess it found anything, because it said something like, "you rock." when it got done, and then I got to start using the software.

Along with installation comes the option to join ThreatNet, a worldwide network of thousands of VIPRE Antivirus, and VIPRE Internet Security users sharing and identifying potentially dangerous program files (both through manual submissions and automatically), resulting in the blocking of new malware almost as quickly as it is released into the wild.  Unknown risks can be automatically sent as soon as they are detected, allowing VIPRE to add them to definition updates and protect users from new malware.  I joined because I want to do everything in my power to stop viruses and malware before they cause problems.  Since I have no idea how or why they work, this at least is something I can do.

One of the things I like best about Vipre is the ability to schedule regular scans of my computer.  If I have to remember to scan every week - or however often I want my computer scanned - I probably won't do it, because I'm going to be busy using my computer for other things - and I usually remember about as soon as I shut the computer down for the night.  By scheduling it to scan automatically, I don't have to think about it again, but I know my computer is being checked for all the bad stuff.  Vipre is supposed to work without using a lot of system resources, so it's possible to scan the computer while also using it for other things.  I still like to set it up to scan overnight, at a time when I'm not using the computer, and I like that there's a box to check to shutdown computer after scan - so, just because I'm scanning at bedtime, that doesn't mean my computer has to run all night.

I have run a couple scans while I was using my computer for other things, and I really did not notice that it slowed my computer down.  I love that, because I've had other antivirus programs that pretty much made it impossible to do anything else while a scan was running - which is why I just started setting it up to scan when I was in bed.

Of course there's also the Active Protection which looks for and catches things in real time, which I think is the most important part of any anti-virus program.  If you're like me, you spend a lot of time online, interacting on facebook and other social media sites.  While there are a lot of positives, there are always risks that clicking the wrong link can invite a virus onto your computer.  I try to be really careful and don't click questionable links, but you can never be too careful, and it's so very important to have a program that is looking out for you. Vipre also comes with free US-based technical support.  You know what that means - when you call with a problem, you'll be able to understand what they're trying to tell you!

Be sure to check out Vipre for yourself.  You can find out all about the features and what it can do for you on the vipreantivirus.com website and http://www.facebook.com/GFIVIPREAntivirus.

Where to Go for Free Downloads

If you've got teenagers, I bet they know exactly where to download free music, games, videos and more.  I know my kids do, but I've never really looked into it.  Until now.

I've been checking out this site called general-files.com.  You type in the name of something you're looking for and get a whole list of options to choose from.  General-files.com is like a huge file search engine to help you find all the free files available on the Internet.  If you're looking to download free music, movies or games, it looks like a really good place to start.  They pull together files from all the different file sharing sites on the internet - 4shared.com, rapidshare.com, mediafire.com, and a whole list of others - some I've heard of and some I haven't.  The beauty of it is that you don't have to know about or visit all those different sites and search for what you're looking for.  You can just search in this one place.   You can also refine your searches by choosing to only search within some of those file sharing sites, choosing to search Everything or limiting the type and size of the files you want.

They've got a new option called general-catalog.com which is supposed to make searching for those free downloads even easier.  It's designed to be more intuitive and visual so that it's easier to use.  Instead of just a file name like you get at general-files.com, you also get a description of what the file is and even an image of what you're getting.  They have about 2 million categorized files together with user-written description articles.  Since the General Files site indexes more than 235 million files, they have a ways to go to get them all into the free downloads directory at general-catalog.com, but I think it's going to be a lot easier to find the files you're looking for using the catalog site.  At least for me.  You can also see which files are popular and what other people are looking at and downloading, which is kind of fun and also can be really helpful in deciding which file is the right one.  Users are encouraged to rate the files, report any problems and just generally help improve the experience for everyone.  If you're like me, you worry a bit about downloading anything, so I like to know what other people think first.

To download from either of these sites, you should download and install their free download software called General Downloader.  It supports downloading from direct links and from many of the file-hosting websites.  You can search directly from the application and download from many of these sites without being bogged down in the endless captchas, popups, and other obstacles they apparently like to put in your way.  Use it to download files from general-files.com or general-catalog.com.  Use it as a hotfile no captcha downloader.  It's free for everyone and integrates into all the popular browsers. 

How many free files will I download?  I don't know, but I like knowing where to look if I want to.

Cory Can Convert His Own Movies

After converting 5 of Cory's movies so he can put them on his Zune, I figured out how to get the program onto his computer - even though he missed the Giveaway of the Day. So, I downloaded the program and converted a movie using the program on Cory's computer. Now, on my computer, if the movie is 2 hours long, it takes 2 hours to convert it to MP4, but on Cory's computer it is a lot faster. The first one took about 45 minutes for a movie that was a little over 2 hours long.

Needless to say (but saying it anyway) - movies will be converted on Cory's computer from now on. They're his movies for his Zune anyway, so why should I have to spend so much time doing it?

This software is going to be very useful. You know how many of the movies you buy now come with a digital copy? Well, when we bought The Dark Knight, Jeffrey bought the 2-disc version with the digital copy. And Cory couldn't get it to work with his Zune. Somebody explain why a Microsoft music player cannot play the Microsoft .wmv files. Anyway, we basically spent extra money to get a digital version of a movie that no-one can use, or that is only playable on the computer and not on the portable device we bought it for. Now we'll just create our own digital copies.

Writing El Paso

...or my own version of a stimulus plan...

I've been putting together rebates - for the software we bought when we bought TurboTax, and for the kids' cell phones. All together, over $500 worth of rebates. That's why I'm very, very particular and obsessed with doing these right.

First, I listed all the rebates and requirements to make sure everything came out free like it was supposed to (on the software) - and I found that I had grabbed the wrong version of the Print Shop. So, Jeffrey went back and got the right one. Then, I just started going through all those rebate forms, filling them out, seeing which ones I could fill out online, cutting out UPCs, and making lots and lots of copies of everything. As I finished each one, I put all required materials into the envelopes, but I did not seal them. No, first I have to look each one over at least once to be sure everything is right, and I have to enter the info into my spreadsheet - so I can keep track of what rebates have been requested, for how much, when they were mailed, and when they are received. That way I can easily see if there are any that need tracked down. Hopefully I won't need to do any of that, but at least I will have all the documentation if I ever need to.

All in all, it's good to know that the money will soon be rolling in. No, it's not money we can go spend on luxury hotel rooms or vacations, because it's money that we've already spent. We're just reclaiming it. Still, it works out, doesn't it? We spend the money in the first place - so the software manufacturers can stay in business, the stores can stay in business, those rebate processors in El Paso can keep their jobs, and it really only costs me some time, some envelopes, and some stamps. I say, if they want people to spend more money, offer more rebates. Even if I don't really need it, I'll often buy it if I can get it for free.

Camera Software - Who Knew?

When I got my camera a couple years ago, I never bothered to install the software that came with it. The camera uses SD cards, so I just popped them into the card reader and copied the pictures to my computer that way - the way I'd always done it. But, since I had to reinstall Windows and then my card reader wouldn't read the SD cards properly, I thought I'd give the camera software a try. And also because, since I'm starting with 0 photos on my computer, this is a good time to start over with something new.

This stuff is pretty neat. I hook the camera to the computer with the cable and can download all the pics on the card. The software even puts them into folders by date. Then, I can use that same software to add keywords, change file names, etc. It even reads all the camera information like shooting mode, shutter speed, and other camera stuff that I don't actually understand that well. This is important because I took an online class about all those camera settings, and I tried shooting with different settings, but later I couldn't remember which setting was what - so this should really help. I am going to have to go back over all that class info though, because now I don't remember much of it.

Anyway, I'm just now going through and organizing photos that were on one of my cards - thankfully still because I would have lost them otherwise - finding pictures I forgot about, and seeing what I can do with this software. So far I'm liking it, not enough to create promotional bags to let everyone know about it, but enough to mention it.

How about you - do you use the software that came with your camera? Have you found any good ways to keep your photos organized?

Rebates & Movies

Jeffrey and I went and bought TurboTax today, along with a bunch of other software that will be free after rebate. I have a hard time resisting free stuff. Have you noticed? We got several different Internet security titles, a PDF converter, PrintShop 23, and some other stuff. I will have to spend a bit of time reading over rebates and making sure everything adds up, and then putting stuff together to mail, but it's all worth it in the end, right?

It will have to wait until at least tomorrow, though. Right now we're watching Ocean's Thirteen. We talked about going to a movie since we were out, but decided to come home and watch some I got from the library instead. We could have watched them on the big screen, so it would sort of been like going to a movie. I could even have made some popcorn, but instead we're just watching on the television - the one on the tv stand in the living room. It's probably too cold to go down in the basement anyway. That's our story, and we're stickin' to it.

Earn More Money with Dragon

The following is a guest post by Brett Bumeter of Softduit Media. He explains how using Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 can help bloggers earn more money. Then I'll tell you how to Get Dragon Naturally Speaking using Discount code DNSMBG.

First watch this video demonstration:


Then read what Brett has to say about making money on your blog with Dragon Naturally Seaking 10:

Press Release:

This is an excerpt from a white paper discussing how bloggers can earn more money through several different monetization and freelance writing services. It shows that bloggers that utilize Dragon Naturally Speaking can earn more money through these various services and how fast these extra earnings will pay for the software itself.
Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Blogger Break Even Analysis with Average PayPerPost Earnings

Basically, Dragon NaturallySpeaking can help you type so much faster, that you can earn a lot more money per hour.
In this article I'm going to walk you through another scenario focusing on how much extra you could earn if you wrote for PayPerPost.com and you had a single average blog. Now at PayPerPost.com, the amount of money that you earn for your writing is not paid on a per word basis.
PayPerPost.com offers up opportunities, they call them opportunities, but you can also think of them as piecework or a job, and these "opportunities" typically have a minimum word count. The minimum word count is typically 200 words for your average article. In general the average article at PayPerPost on a high earning blog pays about $8.3. Sometimes they pay a little less, and sometimes they pay a little bit more, and a few go to extremes on the positive side.
Now if you are paid $8.3 to write a 200 word article, then that breaks down to about 4.2 cents per word. That is about 6 times more than what you can make at textbroker.com. I mentioned that only for comparison purposes, because PayPerPost.com limits you to writing three articles per blog per day.
That means that you cannot write at PayPerPost all day long for your single blog. (If you have additional blogs, you might be able to write additional articles on those other blogs.)
Tip! – You can write your three articles at PayPerPost, write some additional articles without any sponsors in between those articles (as is required), and then write some articles at PayU2Blog, and when the work is exhausted there, you can write some articles at TextBroker.com! The trick is working for the company that pays you the most first, then moving on to the next highest margin provider, over and over again.
You will see in the case studies with Adsense that writing MORE articles is actually good for building traffic to your blog!
But if we assume, just to have a comparison to our textbroker.com example, if we assume that you could type articles at PayPerPost for fifty minutes straight, earning 4.2 cents per word, and you could type 35 words per minute, you could earn $72.88 dollars per hour at PayPerPost. Now obviously, you cannot take 9 articles on a single blog in a single day, but this does point to the rate at which you can earn things with the work that is available. That $72.88 would be the earnings you could make from about 8.8 Opportunities at $8.3 per Opportunity.
So bear with me again with this example. :-)
So what can faster typing skills do to help you earn more money at PayPerPost?
Well if you could type at 150 words per minute with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and you currently type at 35 words per minute, then you could earn about $239 per hour more! (Dragon only costs between $99 and $199 remember!)
Reminder - This would assume that you could type articles nonstop at a hundred and fifty words per minute for fifty minutes. For most of us, that doesn't mean a whole lot.
But to put this in better perspective, if you earned $72.88 from writing about nine articles, and those articles were each 200 words long, then you would have written a total of 1800 words.
• 1800 words can be typed and 50 minutes at 35 words per minute
• 1800 words can be typed in 12 minutes at 150 words per minute
Dragon NaturallySpeaking can essentially save you 38 minutes when you write nine articles.
Now with those additional thirty-eight minutes, you can spend more time:
• promoting your blog,
• networking with people,
• researching other projects,
• taking on other work from other networks
• build up a new blog to command $8.3 per article!
• Go write some articles for PayU2Blog
• Go write some articles for TextBroker
• Go write some articles to bring in more traffic and earn more money through Adsense!
You can pocket your $72.88 from twelve minutes worth of work. You can then spend the rest of that hour, working to ensure that the blog you publish those on performs very well. But the point is this, Dragon NaturallySpeaking can save you so much time, that it will pay for itself very quickly.
Your average part-time blogger will easily pay for Dragon NaturallySpeaking with the additional profits that they would earn from using Dragon NaturallySpeaking in less than 1 hour worth of blogging through PayPerPost alone. :-)
Plus just think of all of the time, that you would now have to make yourself and your site even more successful!

You can read the entire white paper at http://www.softduit.com/mavenmappersinformation/category/software/dragon-naturally-speaking/

Now, about those savings. I'm happy to tell you that Nuance has agreed to give our readers 25% off Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred, so you can get started earning more money with your blog. You have to click the graphic there on the right and enter coupon code DNSMSBG. The code will not work unless you click the image to order.

Another Super Dragon Video

I'm not the only one who has been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 and finding out how it can help make blogging, and all kinds of other things, easier. Here's a video from SuperZ showing how easy it is to type with Dragon:



Here's what Brett Bumeter of Softduit Media has to say about SuperZ's video:

The video above was created by a blogger that goes by the name, SuperZ.

I couldn't write that name before using Dragon NaturallySpeaking until I trained Dragon NaturallySpeaking to recognize the name SuperZ. I mention that because I'm using Dragon NaturallySpeaking right now to write this article (notice Dragon new when I said the words right now that I meant the word right and not the word to write).

I've been writing articles and reviews about Dragon NaturallySpeaking for close to two years. I've had a lot of experience with the software, and I wanted to reach out to other bloggers and see what they thought of the software.

SuperZ tried out the software and as you can see from his own video, the results that he's getting after having used the software for just a week are pretty amazing. His computer is keeping up with just about every word that he says, and typing those words out for him in text.

Well frankly that's exactly what Dragon NaturallySpeaking is supposed to do these days and it lives up to its claim of achieving 99% accuracy and I've clocked it typing faster than its claims of 150 words per minute.

That's right you can type 150 words a minute with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. You do have to spend a little time editing from time to time, but you type so fast that editing doesn't take that long. You get the typing done faster and the editing is a breeze because you only have to look at the way that you phrased words. Dragon NaturallySpeaking almost never makes a spelling mistake. It types out the entire word based on the vocabulary that has stored in the machine. So it really can't misspell a word it's pulling the word straight out of a dictionary.

The only exception might be the case when you run into a name like SuperZ, which is not in your dictionary yet. When you run across a name like that, all you have to do is add it into your dictionary and train the software to recognize that new word or name. It just takes a second and after that you'll be able to say SuperZ all you like and Dragon NaturallySpeaking will know exactly what you are talking about.

Sincerely,
Brett Bumeter
Softduit Media
www.softduit.com
PS this article includes about 381 words that I wrote with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10. It took me about 4 minutes to write and 4 minutes to edit this article. The writing time included the short amount of time it took to train dragon to recognize the name SuperZ. Editing took 4 minutes because I’ve been working all night and I’m not reading too fast!

Now I better train my copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 to recognize the name SuperZ! I also do have to point out that Brett needs to explain to his Dragon the difference between 'knew' and 'new' - sorry, I couldn't help myself. I think I'm an editor at heart.

If all this sounds like something you can use, get Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Type 150 Words per minute for $99!

Look, No Hands!

Right now I'm typing this post and petting the cat at the same time. Now, when's the last time you could do that when you had your hands on the keyboard? And, that's the trick. No hands! I'm using Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 to type this post.

I wanted to do this post earlier, but as you all know, we were away from home, and I just didn't have a chance to do it. It figures that I go away and have to sit in meetings and classes and services right when I really need to test my new software. I'm talking about Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, the software that allows you to type just by using your voice. And, of course, I couldn't be using my voice when I was supposed to be quiet and listening and not distracting the people around me.

I did manage to sneak away for a little bit and record a quick video showing a little bit about how Dragon NaturallySpeaking works. I apologize for the sound quality. It sounds decent using my head phones, but not so good with the speakers. So, if you really want to hear what I have to say, use headphones. (Edit: never mind, it was my sound settings.) If I have a chance, I may try recording a new video later. This one isn't exactly what I wanted, but my WebCam wouldn't work the way I wanted it to, so I tried a new screen capture software to record this, and it affected it really strangely. That whole Japanese movie, badly dubbed lip sync thing is kind of disconcerting too. Still, you get the idea. And, the sound was at least good enough for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 to hear me!



I used to be able to type about 60 words per minute, back in high school. Now, I'm really not sure how fast I type, but I know it's not as fast as I can using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10. Take the Dragon NaturallySpeaking typing test! to see for yourself how you stack up to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10. I took the test a couple weeks ago, and I'm way too embarrassed to tell you how badly I did. I haven't done it yet but I am so tempted to go back and try it again with my new software. Is that cheating?

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 allows you to type up to 150 words per minute. Simply talk, and the software does the typing for you. As you saw in the video, you can also do editing with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10. The more you edit, the smarter Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 becomes, and the less you'll need to edit in the future. Of course, you'll need to speak clearly so that Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 can understand what it is you're trying to say in the 1st place, and that's not necessarily a bad thing!

So far, I'm finding that this software works really well, with just a little setup and training. It seems to work best in its own DragonPad software, which is fully supported by Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10. You can also use it to type into Microsoft Word, into your blogging platform, and other things. I foresee lots of great, long, interesting blog posts using this software. The faster I can type, the more I can say, right? For instance, this post was supposed to be a minimum of 200 words, and I just couldn't stop talking. Like I said in the video, I can get all the words on the screen as I'm thinking them without waiting for my fingers to catch up. Okay, I may not have said exactly that, but you know what I mean.

For more info, check out this New York Times Review, which made me laugh, and this video:

Blogging While I'm Working

I mentioned on Facebook yesterday that I should be cleaning. My cousin left me a message saying that as much as I clean I shouldn't have anything else left to clean, so I should come help her clean her house. Obviously I wasn't cleaning my house, since I was online, and that is pretty much my problem. There are so many things that always need done around here, but I'd rather be online, blogging about the things that need done. I have a friend on LiveJournal who seems to get more done in one day than most people get done in a month, and she has time to blog about it and create videos. Me? I usually have to choose - between doing something or blogging about it.

I just finished watching a video showing how Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred works. Or was it Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard? Either way, I can see how this software could help busy bloggers, and busy moms like me who want to have time to be good bloggers. This software lets you type just by using your voice. So, I could be doing other things and blogging at the same time, especially if I can get my Bluetooth headset to work with my computer. The software comes with a headset, but I'd need a really long cord.

I'm always composing posts in my head while I'm washing dishes or folding laundry or vacuuming the floor. With the Dragon Naturally Speaking software, instead of putting together a great post in my head, only to forget everything I wanted to say when I finally sit down at the computer, I could be putting together a great post on my computer. When no-one's around, I'm usually talking out loud anyway. (Shhh, don't tell)

When I have take time to sit down at my computer to put together a blog post, the Dragon Naturally Speaking software could help with that, too. Even though I type pretty fast, I can talk a lot faster, and that means it would take less time to write a post, not counting the editing and perfecting and all that stuff I always have to do, but no software can help me with that! I would probably have to go back to typing when other people are in the room, either that or let Jeffrey think I'm just telling him about my day, when I'm really blogging it.

Check out a couple videos and the NY Times Review of DNS10 to find out more about this software.

Video 1:


Dogs, kids, construction, vacuum cleaners?

Video 2:


If I had this software, I'm thinking I might finally be able to get my house cleaned, and be able to tell you about it too. Now if I could just find some software that will do the cleaning for me...



Note: this post in no way implies that having this software would make me a great blogger, or that I would actually get my housework done. However, if you think I would love to try this software to see what I can do with it, you're right.

Free Software

I recently came across a site called Giveaway of the Day. Every day they give away FREE software. That's right - absolutely free. You have to download and install it that day. You don't get free technical support or future upgrades, but you do get a licensed version of the program - not a trial version. Cory and I have downloaded and installed several of the programs. Not every one is something that we can use or are interested in, but I've been keeping an eye on what is available every day. I signed up to get the daily email, which tells me what the Giveaway of the Day is. From that, I can decide if I'm interested and want to check it out further.

One of the most helpful things about the site is that people who have already downloaded and installed the program can leave their comments and rate it. Often someone will leave a link to another similar program - usually also free - that they feel does a better job than the one currently being offered by Giveaway of the Day. So sometimes, instead of downloading and installing a program that I might need someday, I bookmark the other ones so I can find them if I ever need them. There is also a guy who posts his 15 minute review of each program for a more in-depth coverage of how the program works, if it works, etc. Very helpful.

I have added a ticker from Giveaway of the Day to my sidebar. Each day it shows the software that is available for FREE, and how long you have left to download and install it. If you see something that sounds interesting, just click and check it out.