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With under 40 days remaining until the June 12 switch-off of analog TV stations across the United States, Nielsen Media Research reports that 3.1 percent of TV homes in the U.S. are still not prepared for the DTV transition.

That number amounts to 3.5 million households being caught by surprise when their analog-only over-the-air TV broadcasts go to snow next month. That's an improvement of about 1.5 million homes since a February 18 Nielsen survey, which is significant because the original switchover date was scheduled for February 17 before being delayed.

There's no sign … Read more

Update 4:15 p.m. PDT: Two clarifications. First, Remote Media Streaming is not limited to music--you can also stream video and pictures. I focused on music because that's the main topic of this blog. Second, you are required to associate a Windows Live ID (which used to be called Passport) with each computer whose library you want to share, and each computer you want to be able to access that library. I assume Microsoft took this step to avoid complaints or possible litigation from content owners.

Tired of not having enough power points in your vehicle to keep your phone charged, your GPS on, and your DVD/monitor combo playing? Change all that by adding additional 12-volt power outlets to your car.

12seconds, a service that lets users tell others what they're up to in 12-second videos, announced Thursday that it has launched a new service called, 12omercial. The company hopes the service will become the "tweetable video commercial." Brand sponsors and companies will be asking users to create 12omercials on their behalf. Those who record the best video will receive "12 seconds of fame to goods and other prizes, as determined by the sponsor." All the videos can be added to Twitter, uploaded to Facebook, or embedded into a blog.

So far, 12seconds has signed on … Read more

Making coffee is never an easy task to focus on early in the day. For some, myself included, mornings are a miserable mess until coffee has been introduced into the equation. The problem is that sometimes it can be difficult even to get to that point. Luckily, some smart folks got to thinking and integrated a timer into a coffeemaker. This one innovation certainly makes life easier for those of us who don't function well without the magical elixir.

The Cuisinart Coffee on Demand 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker offers the convenience needed by morning-challenged coffee lovers. With 24-hour programmability and … Read more

This program is supposed to organize various files into separate folders based on their extensions. But thanks to vague directions and lack of help, we weren't impressed with what this program had to offer.

SmistaFiles has a bland and unintuitive user interface. All of the commands take place in one window, but with such vague directions, we weren't sure what was supposed to go where. The program doesn't include a Help file, so we had to learn through trial and error. We selected the destination folder that contained the files we wanted to organize. From there, we … Read more

As the need for greater security grows--even for home users--finding intuitive but robust solutions becomes more important. R-Crypto Disk Security fits the bill nicely for the average user. This nicely designed app provides encryption on the fly as you save data, and decryption as you open data, by creating password-protected virtual storage disks.

R-Crypto Disk Security launches a handsome interface that clearly means business, but is easy to navigate. Its features are clearly defined by the task categories listed in the navigation bar on the left and the large function pane on the right side of its window. Setting up … Read more

Activ for Vista is a free program that claims to monitor your system's processes, DLLs, and Registry. Thanks to an unintuitive user interface and lack of user guidance, we never got very far with this program.

The user interface is too plain and too vague. There are three check boxes on the left side of the small window for settings: Process Start/Stop, DLL (Image) Load, and Registry. On the right side of the window are the file creation options. Not knowing where to go next, we checked off our monitor settings and clicked the Apply button. Nothing happened. … Read more

This privacy program aims to clear your browsing history and free up space on your computer; however, several error messages prevented us from getting a clear picture of this program's abilities.

During the installation process for ID Privacy Shield, we received an error message. We were able to bypass it and move on to the user interface, which was quite eye-catching. From first glance, it appeared very easy to navigate, with prominent command buttons running down the left side of the window. The program includes a history cleaner, file shredder, and disk cleaner. But more often than not, when … Read more