We just got word from one of our readers that ZoneAlarm Forcefield will be free for this Tuesay (August 12th) at 6am PST. Normally Forcefield costs $29.99 to purchase which includes a years worth of subscription updates. The offer is valid for 24 hours after the launch.

For those of you who dont know what it is, ZoneAlarm Forcefield is a virtualization system that isolates your browser from the computer. If your browser did fall victim to an exploit or you are tricked into opening something you shouldnt, your computer is safe because the malware cannot touch your computers actual files or registry items.

ZAFF also attempts to stop sites from stealing your personal information. While in this virtualization “bubble”, ZAFF includes technology to jam keyloggers and block programs that snatch screenshots while you are surfing.

To download ZoneAlarm Forcefield, goto the following site on August 12th after 6am PST:

http://www.zonealarm.com/patchtuesday

Edit: Offer is now available for download. You might want to use a service like 10MinuteMail.com because it requires you to enter an email address so they can “periodically send you promotional offers”.

Special thanks to Gary for letting us know about this. If anyone else hears about similar freebies they would like to share with the Technibble community, please email us via our contact form.

I am sure that most of the technicians here have heard about “Spyware Doctor” by PC Tools at some point. If you haven’t, Spyware Doctor is a free spyware remover and provides real-time protection against spyware, adware, browser hijackers, trojan horses, key loggers etc.
From a Technicians point of view its a great tool to run on clients computers since it uses little computer resources and is effective at catching most spyware.

Anyway, we have discovered a way that you can get free legitimate Spyware Doctor licenses via one of their special promotions. Also, although I haven’t used their other products personally, you can also get free licenses for some of their other products at the same time. “Privacy Guardian” and “Firewall Plus”.

Read on for instructions on how to get your free genuine licenses. Grab them fast because I don’t know how much longer this offer will be available.
Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I held a small survey asking us technicians what hardware brands we like based on quality vs price to get an idea on what other computer technicians are selling to their clients. Here are the results.
Read the rest of this entry »

The other day I posted about how to handle computer warranties and I listed my favorite hardware brands based on quality vs price which was well received by readers.

It is because of this I have created a short survey to find out what brands other technicians use in the computers they sell. I will be releasing the results to all next friday so we all can make better purchases with the stock we buy.

Remember, this survey is about having quality that is value for money. Something that you would sell to your clients.

What hardware brands do you find to be the best in Quality vs Price?

Take The Survey Here

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An article has been posted at itworld.com about tips that can help you solve problems and improve performance in XP.

One of them is about restoring the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer if a third-party application somehow removed it. An application called Actual Booster increases the performance of old computers. The author notes that he saw a big difference when he used it on his old notebook. However, he writes that on some computers, it will cause some trouble with mice.

The article also shows how a user can create a hibernate button. There are at least three steps that are involved to make this happen.

Source: ITworld

Due to our amazing growth (I’m sure the forumers have noticed the huge infux of new members), Technibble has finally opened its doors to private advertisers.

Technibble.com is the most targeted and beneficial target base audience for tech, business, education, geek, computer & hardware related advertisers. Many of our readers are looking to setup their own businesses or become certified to work for someone else.

I highly recommend our $100 (125×125) spots displayed on the right hand side as they are currently undervalued. I know how well the 300×250 and 336×280 positons convert due to Google Ads and they have been priced at their value.
However, since the $100 positions are a new ad location, I’ve chosen a low price until I find out how much they are worth and raise the price in around 6 months time. Grab them cheap while you can, there are only 4 ads for this position available and the ads rotate so each ad gets even exposure. For example, the bottom ad will be up the top in the next page load and in the middle the next page load etc..

For any ad positions bought before the 14th of December (this friday), we’ll do a front page welcome post introducing the advertisers and a little write up on what they are doing and what they sell. This introduction post will also appear in our RSS feed which goes out to around 600 subscribers.

For more information regarding our advertising, check out our Advertising Page.

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About a week ago I had a Technibble reader email me to answer a specific question about the computer business to which I did a big write up. Today you guys can ask me almost any question you want in regards to the computer business that doesn’t warrant a large article (though I may expand on it in an article later down the track). I will have the answers in my next post.

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Fire away.

Computer Technician Stories
I am currently creating an article for this Monday which will be a collection of stories about techies encounters in the field.

We want your stories (must be true of course) of what you encountered. They can be funny, weird, sexy, gross, dumb, scary whatever.

I have already collected a few technicians stories and I’d love to have more to post in the article. I can give you a back link to your business site if you want, or you can remain anonymous.

To submit your story, email it to: news [at] technibble [dot] com

I will be accepting submissions right up until the time you see the article published here and can be as long or short as you want. Looking forward to hearing them.

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