Obviously, it’s a smart move to sync your phone and install it right away. It’s on iTunes. The update takes about 9 – 11 minutes (depending on the speed of your Internet connection).

Spam has become an inevitability for the online.  Not only is it annoying and often distasteful, it is a carrier of nasty viruses and malware that can render your system impotent. (Sorry, can’t resist the Viagra pun.)

The bad news – unless you completely disconnect from the Internet spam is pretty much unavoidable.
The good news – there are things you can do to reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Here are a few tips to protect bring down your spam noise level.

Open a separate email account.
Setup a separate email account with a free email service (Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail are a few) to use for mailing lists, shop online, or join social networking sites. If this account gets too filled with spam, you can simply delete it and create a new one. Do not use this account for personal, business, or any critical emails. And do not connect this email to your mobile device.

Watch out for default options and checkboxes.
When you sign up or register online for some services or products, you might be presented with check boxes that offer to send you email announcements or special offers. These options are usually pre-selected by default, so if you aren’t interested in receiving these kinds of notices, remember to uncheck them before you continue.

Beware of untrustworthy applications on social networking sites.
Sorry Farmville, but it should really be called Spamville. Many social networking sites offer applications you can use to take quizzes, play games, or send your friends virtual “gifts.” But you should be aware that these applications also have access to your (and your friends’) personal information. Some malicious programs will sell this information to mailing lists or advertisers, while others will go so far as to steal your login information, sign in to your account, and then spam your friends. With this in mind, be careful about downloading new applications to your account, and remove or disable any applications you don’t feel comfortable sharing your information with.

Check privacy policies on web sites and mailing lists.
Trustworthy companies and listservs will have a link to their privacy policy on their websites. Read through the policy to find out exactly what the web or listserv administrators plan to do with your information before you give them your email address.

A brief history of spam, spam, spam
Spam has been around since the dawn of the Internet age. The term “spam” came into use in the 1980s. Contrary to popular belief, electronic spam is not named (directly) after the canned meat product. Rather, it’s a reference to a popular sketch by the British comedy group Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In the sketch, a group of Vikings in a restaurant loudly chant “Spam, Spam, Spam” until all other conversations are drowned out—a humorous comparison to the way electronic trash can quickly drown your inbox.

Contact TechAdvocate Solutions as we have solutions to help you avoid the onslaught of SPAM.
Click here, fill-out the VERY short form, and someone will be contacting you!

To use Voice Control simply press the home button (the round button just below the screen) for a few seconds. When it is ready for you to speak, your iPhone will vibrate and chime twice quickly.

Here’s a video demo of the iPhone Voice Control.

Here are some available commands:

Dial 1 800 5 5 5 1 2 1 2
Dialing by numbers works remarkably well, even understanding “eight hundred” in addition to “eight zero zero.”

Dial (USERNAME) mobile
Accessing phone numbers from your address book is simple. Use the contact’s name followed by the specific phone number you want to call (work, home, mobile, pager, etc.).

Call (USERNAME)
Call is interchangeable with dial. In this example, just the contact’s name is spoken. If the contact has one phone number, that number will be dialed. Otherwise, the display will show the contact’s name at top plus the text “Multiple Numbers” just below. The iPhone will tell you which phone numbers are available (i.e., “Jennifer, mobile or work?”). Tell it which one you want to call and it will do the rest.

Play album (album name)
Play playlist (playlist name)
Play songs by (artist name)
Play artist (artist name)
These commands provide a variety of ways to select music to play.

Play more like this
This command creates and plays a genius playlist from the current song.

Play music
Play
Pause music
Pause
These commands start or stop playing, just like hitting the play/pause button on an iPod.

Next track
Next
Previous track
Previous
These commands do what you’d expect, behaving like the next and previous buttons on an iPod.

What song is playing?
What’s playing?
Who plays this song?
Who sings this song?
These commands all do the same thing. The song title and artist will be spoken by the iPhone.

Shuffle
This simple command will toggle the state of the shuffle setting. It will also tell you what the shuffle state is to confirm that it is what you want.

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List Price:                     $969.99
Instant Savings:       -$470.00
Price:                             $499.99
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IBM ThinkPad T60 Notebook PC – Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz, 1GB DDR2, 60GB HDD, Combo, 14.1” TFT, Windows XP Pro (Off-Lease)
$349.97
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TechAdvocate Solutions has a PC setup service at a very reasonable price.
Setup includes:
* Downloading all the latest security patches
* MS Office Professional 2003 with updates
* AVG antivirus
* Firefox browser
* Adobe Reader
* Latest versions of Flash and Java
* Most up-to-date version of iTunes
Just go to the following website and fill out the very short form:
http://www.techadvocate-solutions.com/contactus.php
We will email you instructions on where to ship you new PC.

Here’s a quote from Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox from 1946:

Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night

Don’t be to social mobility what Darryl Zanuck was to TV.

Here are some “bottom line” considerations for a socially mobile web presence.

To Flash or Not to Flash
Flash is a proprietary technology from Adobe primarily used to add animation and video to websites. The problem with Flash is that is not supported on many mobile environments. There has always been tension between Flash and the Web. Artistic types like it. But because of security issues, incompatibility with search engines, and being not compatible with many mobile platforms, Flash has fallen out of favor with the IT community.
The bottom line.
You should not build your website on Flash or use Flash for your navigation. If you use Flash at all, use it sparingly. I prefer using JavaScript; it is an open system that works well on mobile devices. And if you use video upload it to YouTube and put the link on your website. Then when your website is viewed from an iPhone/iTouch/iPad it will launch the YouTube app and the user can view the video.

Content is King
On the Web content is king. Of course you want a nice looking website, but on the Internet it is more important what you say that just having a pretty frame. And in today’s real-time online world you need to be able to update your website quickly without a lot of drama. Your website should be built on an open source platform where you post updates without having to go your web designer. Then you can save your webmaster for the big “techie” stuff (ecommerce, RSS feeds, social network plugins, etc…).
The bottom line.
If you need to call your web person every time you want to make even a tiny change to your website then it’s time to renovate your website to a content control system. My favorite is WordPress because of its ease of use, plays well with social media, and works well on mobile browsers.

Can Facebook Help Your Business?
The short answer is “yes”. Whether it is Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and even MySpace, having a social media strategy ranks up there with having a search engine optimization plan (Google ranking). Having a page on social networking websites is the best way to improve your search engine placement, so it all ties together. However, it is important to control your social networking and not let it control you. (Stay clear of Farmville, Mafia Wars, and politics!)
The bottom line.
Embracing social networking can help others embrace your business. If you are a bit social-media-shy then I suggest you start with Linkedin as it caters to the business community and is not as intense as Facebook.

Need Help?
Becoming socially mobile can be fun, but it can be tricky, too. Let TechAdvocate Solutions help you with you develop an online strategy that’s right for you. Click here, fill-out the VERY short form, and someone will be contacting you!

(Follow the prompts to setup your Dropbox account and install in your PC/Laptop/Mac.)

If you have received an email from TechAdvocate Solutions with your Dropbox username and password then here’s the instructions to install on your PC/Laptop/Mac:

• Click on following link to download Dropbox installation file:    Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
• Once the file is downloaded, run the file.
• Click Install
• Select “I already have a Dropbox account” and click Next
• Enter your Dropbox Email and Password.  (Provided via email)
• Click Next, Next (Do not upgrade your account if propmted)
• Click “Skip tour and finish” OR click “Next” for a short tour of Dropbox (your choice)
• Click Finish

There are over 350 million users on Facebook and growing.  Imagine the potential!  But your website may not have the infrastructure to interface with Social Media if it was designed in the pre-Facebook age.   (Which was just a few months ago.  Hey, the cyber-world moves fast.)

With the explosion of online social networking you need a website that can tap into the this incredible power and give you flexible content control so you can easily post updates, pictures, and video.

At TechAdvocate Solutions we are building websites on the powerful WordPress content control platform.   This allows you much more flexibility for content control and Social Media interaction.

Here are just a few WordPress websites that were developed by TAS and are currently hosted by TAS on LanternTec servers.   (LanternTec is a Web Hosting/Server Company owned and operated by TAS.)

Your WordPress website can be linked to powerful social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.  Here’s an example of how it works:

• My tech blog is called Biology of Technology:  http://www.biologyoftechnology.com/
• Posts from this blog are automatically fed to the following:
• My TechAdvocate Solutions Website:  http://www.techadvocate-solutions.com/
• My TechAdvocate Solutions Facebook:

  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Atlanta-GA/TechAdvocate-Solutions/49186883565

• My Rick Howington Facebook wall (need to be on Facebook to see)

  http://www.facebook.com/rhowington

• My Myspace page:  http://www.myspace.com/rhowington
• My Linkinedin.com profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickhowington (need to be on Linkedin.com to see)
• With literally a click of the mouse you can post updates from your website to Twitter (twitter.com).

Your website and web hosting includes the following:

• Personalized service for your website project
• Full Featured WordPress (WP) content control
• Installation of a WP Theme that you pick for the look-and-feel of your blog
• Search Engine Optimization Plugins
• SPAM blocking plugin to help stop unwanted comments and other SPAM attacks
• Social Networking plugin so you and others can share your blog posts and other info from your website on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites.
• Mobile device access of your website and blog posts
• Our “World famous” WordPress “cheat sheet) to help you get started.
• Web Hosting (12 Months) on an Independent Web Server using your Domain
• Tools to Measure Traffic (12 Months)

TAS can help you customize you website to meet your specific needs.  Because we have built the foundation of the website without having to re-invent the wheel, we can focus on customizing your website to get the look and feel you want.
Here are some examples of customizations:

• Customized Theme (look and feel)
• Ecommerce
• Mobile Access
• Take Online payments
• Advertising revenue capacity

Click here if you are interested in upgrading your website so you can get more customers and make more money!

Is your PC running slow?

Are you concerned that your PC may be vulnerable to viruses?

Now it is a good time to do some PC spring cleaning.

Click here to contact TechAdvocate Solutions for a PC Spring Cleaning.

According to McAfee Labs this is the sixth most prevalent piece of malware targeting consumers.

Here’s how a phony email may look:

Here are few clues that this is a phishing scam.

• Facebook doesn’t send e-mails like this. It may send an e-mail with a link where the user can reset the password, but not an e-mail with an attachment.
• The e-mail has poor grammar and awkward phrases. For instance, Facebook is not capitalized in the salutation.

Dell Latitude D630 HBDPJF1 Notebook Computer – Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 1.8GHz, 1GB DDR2, 80GB HDD, DVDRW, 14.1″ WXGA, Windows XP Pro (Off-Lease)

$419.99

Click here to order

If you live in the Atlanta, GA area TechAdvocate Solutions has a PC setup service.  Just go to the following website and fill out the very short form:
http://www.techadvocate-solutions.com/contactus.php
We will email you instructions on where to ship you new PC.  Setup includes:

• Downloading all the latest security patches
• MS Office Professional 2003 with updates
• AVG antivirus
• Firefox browser
• Adobe Reader
• Latest versions of Flash and Java
• Most up-to-date version of iTunes

All at a very reasonable price!