Let's say you're getting rid of your game console. Maybe you think you're too grown up. Maybe you bought a better one. Or maybe you just need to make rent. Whatever the case, you need to wipe your data off of it. Game consoles these days carry sensitive information like addresses, passwords, and even credit card information.
Here's how to secure each of the three major game consoles before you sell them.
Let's start with the Xbox 360. If you're upgrading to a new Xbox 360, you'll need to get the Hard Drive Transfer Kit, which is included with some newer Xboxes or available for around $50. Using it is an involved process of moving your data, then moving your data licenses. In the end, though, you will erase all the data on the original drive.
If you don't care about transferring content, it's much easier. Go to the 360 dashboard, go to system settings, choose memory, press Y for device options. Select format the drive. And confirm it with yes. The drive will reformat, and you'll see the default setup screen.
On to the Nintendo Wii.
... Read MoreCell phones still dominate CNET's most-popular list. Well actually, they're the entire list. But it's interesting to see where they fall. Remember, these lists aren't based on our recommendations, but on the number of times people visited the reviews page.
And there is a lame prize this time of course, so watch the show, and then post your answer in the comments below.
Last week's question: What was the name of the Linux computer sold at Wal-Mart that was sued by Microsoft for brand confusion with Windows? Answer: Lindows (though technically, each machine had its own model number, so that answer was also accepted if correct).
Tom and Rafe talk about eReaders and help you decide which one you should get.
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Here's a remote-control trick to skip past those annoying ads: simply press the Stop button twice, and then Play. So, Stop, Stop, Play.
This trick should work on any DVD player, and hopefully it will keep you from wasting your time watching previews you don't wish to watch.
And, as usual, there is a lame prize question. Watch the video and answer the question in the comments below. If you are one of the first 10 people to get it right, you may be randomly selected to win the lame prize. For some reason this excites many of you--and that makes me smile.
Last week's lame prize answer: YouTube.
Google is always adding nifty ways to get information faster, like typing define before a word to bring up a dictionary definition or doing multiplication for you.
To help you stay a search master, here are five of the hottest search tricks to bust out of the Google labs.
Need to know the hours of the museum you want to visit? Type the word "hours" as part of your search, like "San Francisco museum of modern art hours," and you get the hours it's open right there in the results, without having to click through to the Web site.
Tracking a real-time event, like an election or sporting event? Search for the term you're looking for info on, then click on "Latest results" or select "Latest" in the search options. You get a full page of the latest posts on the topic from around the Web as they happen.
The suggestion box has been around for a while in Google, but the company recently added some more information. Try a weather search. Before you even finish typing, you may have the weather report ready for you in the suggest list. Just look down.
Google has also expanded public transit information, so you can plan your route fast.
Let's say you want to visit the Metreon in San Francisco. Search Metreon. Then click the public transit link. It will come up with all your options and you can enter your starting location to plan a route.
Finally, an oldie but a goodie that not everybody knows about. Do you need to track flight status for yourself or a loved one? It's easy, just type in the airline, the word "flight," and the flight number. You get the status in the drop-down suggestions without having to click, or if you do click they're right at the top.
There are a bunch more where these came from. Share your own with us in the comments below.
I've already written about how the International Olympic Committee tries to cleanse all unauthorized references to its logos, the word "Olympics," and attendant innocent words like "Games" and "Winter" and "2010." And I wrote about the endless Olympic Internet spoilers, thanks to NBC's incredibly asinine scheduling. But the longer they're on, the more chances the IOC gets to act like jack-booted thugs and the more chances NBC gets to blow coverage both online and on TV, until I think we've all come to the same, inescapable conclusion: the Internet hates the Olympics. And you know what? The athletes deserve better than this.
Let's look at This Week in IOC Shenanigans alone. The Committee went after Verizon and Red Bull for mentioning the Games (sue me) and/or specific athletes on Twitter. It ordered a blogger to remove video of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili's death, claiming copyright violation, even though he shot the video himself. It ordered Uvex Sports, a sponsor of skier Lindsey Vonn, not to use her name in a congratulatory note on its Web site. It even ordered a charity Web site founded by Olympic snowboarder Hannah Teter...yes, no, seriously, I'm about to say this, not to use her name on the site for the duration of the Games (sue me).
Hannah Teter's name, redacted from her own charity site
It's so bad that, as a caller on today's Buzz Out Loud episode pointed out that NBC's own Nightly News podcast isn't allowed to use Olympic footage, presumably because they didn't pay the 17 bajillion dollars in blood money the IOC demanded for multimedia rights.
Add that to NBC's coverage plan, which seems to be based on the assumption that the Internet doesn't exist, and you've got an Olympic season that, as Linda Holmes puts it for NPR, "manages to annoy absolutely everyone." You already know this: hours-long delays in coverage, bizarre decisions to show terrifying country-themed ice dancing in lieu of hockey, and so on and so forth. It's been a joke for those of us on the West Coast. I already know what happened in today's hockey game, I knew what happened in this weekend's hockey game, I've known most of the U.S. medal winners in advance, and I've watched a heck of a lot fewer hours of Olympic coverage than I otherwise would have.
Beyond the spoiler problem, though, there's the ludicrously poor online streaming options from NBC. They're only showing curling and hockey live online, and in an age of cable cord-cutting, they're still restricting that live streaming to cable, satellite, or IPTV subscribers. What on earth? As a result, Yahoo.com and ESPN.com are trouncing NBCOlympics.com, despite having no officially sanctioned video of the Games (sue me) available! Why?
The site is an overproduced mess, video highlights are impossible to find, and even those awesome live streams of curling and hockey are just that: blank, un-narrated live streams of curling and hockey that are darned near unwatchable to all but the most rabid of fans.
How is this possible? Between the IOC and NBC, the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games (SUE ME) are the biggest Internet punching bag to come along since the Twitter Fail Whale. If, and that's a big if, you still care about watching the Olympics at all, I recommend a few of these alternatives, like CTV's online channel, or the BBC's live coverage (if you're not into using a proxy to spoof your IP, their live text coverage alone is better than what you'll get at NBC). And for those Web sites and nonsponsoring companies that might want to refer to the Olympics somewhere on the Internet, here's a list of top-secret code names for the elite cadre of athletes the IOC and NBC seem to give a hoot about:
- Morrimpics
- Snames
- Pantouver
- Mincey Ronn
- Tron Flight
- Dani Stavis
And while we're on that subject, if I were an American Olympic athlete, I'd feel more than a little horrified and betrayed by this parade of over-commercialized claptrap if I'd spent my entire life making insane personal sacrifices, enduring near-constant and often horrific injuries and bearing the pressure of pleasing an entire country. Especially if what I got in return was to turn the rights to my own name over to the IOC, and to be utterly ignored like poor Julia Mancuso who, when she won an unexpected silver behind Vonn last week, could barely get 30 seconds of mention from NBC, which picked its storylines early and is sticking to them, by God.
So, really, we can boycott the broadcast and bitch about the spoiler tweets all we want, but we're just the spoiled, demanding spectators. The people who are owed more are the folks who actually have an Olympic dream. Hopefully they'll demand better next time.
Watch the video to find out all five, then post your answer to the trivia question in the comments below. We'll draw one of the first 10 people to answer correctly to win the lame prize.
Last week's lame prize answer: Gavilan SC
Here's how to protect your privacy, remove Buzz notes from your Gmail in-box, and turn Buzz off altogether.
If you've never had a Google Profile before, you're in the best position to protect yourself. You can say no to Buzz altogether. Of course, you can also say yes to Buzz, but make sure your profile is private.
But let's say you previously created a Google Profile, or you were so enthusiastic about Google Buzz that you just willy-nilly said yes to everything. What do you do?
First let's anonymize that Google Profile. You can choose to hide your followers, if they're currently public.
Go to your Google Profile at google.com/profiles/me. If you're not signed in, do so.
Look under the number of people following you. If it says this data is public or if it doesn't say anything at all as it doesn't here, and you'd like to make it private.
Click Edit Profile.
Uncheck the box "Display the list of people I'm following and people following me."
Scroll down and click "Save Changes."
Another issue is your profile name may be your e-mail address. It usually is by default. So, again go to the edit profile screen.
Scroll down to the area called Profile URL.
Click see other options.
Select the address with the weird long number.
And click save changes.
Now people can still find you, but your URL won't give away your e-mail nickname.
So now maybe you're using Google Buzz and feeling good about it. But some Buzz messages show up in the Gmail in-box. Here's how to keep them in the Google Buzz Folder.
Go log-in to Gmail.
Click Settings.
Click Filters.
Click Create a new filter.
Next to the box marked "Has the words" type label:buzz.
Say OK to the warning box.
Click Next Step.
Now check Skip the in-box.
And click Create Filter. Now you're Buzz stays in your Buzz area and doesn't intrude in your in-box.
Finally, let's say after experimenting you just don't like this service and want to turn it off.
While logged into Gmail, scroll down to the bottom and look for the tiny words, turn off buzz and click on them. Be sure you want to turn it off, because there's no confirmation. Once you click it, it's off.
Of course, you can just click it again to turn it back on.
And if you linked any sites to your profile, they may still feed to buzz even if you turned them off. So go back to your profile.
Click edit profile.
Scroll down to your links.
And click edit.
Click Remove link.
And save changes.
Of course, there are lots of other Google Buzz tricks you can do, and Google is continuing to change options to give you more privacy. But these are the essentials you need to know to empower yourself to make good Google Buzz decisions.
We talk about what you need to know to get a blog set up, how to make good content, and whether you can make money from it.
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