TechPost

Today I was at my grandparents house and my grandpa was telling me how relieved he was that he was going to be able to switch from Earthlink to Comcast as his ISP(internet service provider.) It seems like a simple task to me but the problem wasn’t simply changing ISP’s, it was the fact that they had been using the same Earthlink email address for 15 years. They were finally able to make the change due to Earthlink allowing my grandparents to keep their email addresses for $3/month. How nice of Earthlink.

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.

I have several friends living in foreign countries and even though I have an engineering degree I still can’t wrap my mind around what time it is or even what day it is in those countries. Luckily, Windows has a useful option tucked away in the date and time settings menu.

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.

At our previous apartment we were forced to use one power provider and that company enjoyed billing us at about 17.1 cents per kWh which made for some very expensive electricity bills. Recently though, we moved into our first home and we were able to shop around and find a much lower rate. Currently we are paying 10.2 cents per kWh and that is a significant reduction from what our previous provider was charging. In order to find the lowest rate you could pull out the phone book and start calling the different providers or you can head over to a site like http://www.powertochoose.org and instantly see a list of providers in your area and what they are currently charging.

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.