PDF files are the standard for portable documents, and Adobe Acrobat Reader is installed on practically every computer. However, over the years Adobe has made Acrobat Reader very large, and it typcially accompanied by add-on software that uses alot of computer resources and noticeably slows your computer down.

Enter Foxit Reader, a small, fast PDF reader. It loads documents fast with no annoying splash screen or tag-along software. Remove Adobe Reader and install Foxit today.

A great utility for creating PDF files is Bullzip PDF Printer, also free.  Bullzip PDF Printer installs a virtual printer that creates a PDF file from any Windows application.

The recent earthquake in Indiana got me thinking about earthquakes.  Did you know that the region frequently has earthquakes?

A few years ago, I awoke about 3 am and felt the earth tremble in Fort Smith.  No one I asked knew anything about it, and I began to wonder if I was dreaming.  A quick look at the United States Geological Survey eathquake site proved that it wasn’t my imagination – there was indeed an earthquake that night of about 3.0 or so, the epicenter was somewhere east of town, but it was real and it was felt by many others, including myself.

We’ve been seeing an increase in hard drive failures lately, and many are because of the storms that we’ve been having lately.  Power surges and brown-outs are hard on hard drives.

How do you know if your hard drive is failing?  Go to Start, Control Panel (or Settings -> Control Panel), Administrator Tools, Event Event Viewer.  Look under System for events such as “bad block” or read/write failures.  These are indications that your hard drive is failing, and you should waste no time in 1) backing up your data; and 2) replacing the hard drive.

Today's show sponsor is Campbell Farm's Gourmet Popcorn Rice. If you think rice is supposed to be bland and tasteless, try a bag of Campbell Farms Popcorn Rice and you will never buy plain rice again. This rice is grown on a 200-year old family farm in Gueydan. Louisiana.

As a service to our friends and listeners, you can save on shipping by buying your bag at Kirkham Systems, 3000 Old Greenwood Road.

As this Microsoft page clearly points out, mainstream support does end April 14, 2009, but extended support (which includes security patches, the most important updates) does not end until April 8, 2014.

After 3 Service Packs, I really doubt I need more mainstream support.  In fact, I'm not sure I even need Service Pack 3, as SP2 has been bery, bery good for me.

Since XP is already so stable and proven, security updates are all that anyone needs.  So therefore, as far as I am concerned, XP is supported until 2014.

It is inevitable that many of us will have to go to Vista.  All I am saying is that for now, Vista is at best half-baked.  Furthermore, Service Pack 1 for Vista seems to have its own problems and it apparently does little to help with performance issues.

If you must get Vista, get one of the Business versions or Ultimate, and then if you want to "downgrade" to XP, you can legally do it for free.

Picasa is a great, easy to use photo manipulating software package that is free from Google.  It has a number of cool features, but resizing images is a little tougher to figure out.

When you first install Picasa, it will scan your computer for pictures.  Select the picture(s) you want to resize and then go to File -> Export Pictures to Folder. Make sure "Resize to" is selected and use the slider or enter the maximum number of pixels that you want in the largest dimension.

We have been using Google Apps' Message Filtering service for a few weeks now, and all I can say is that it seems to work great.  Although not perfect (and that would be the breakthrough of the Internet age if someone created a perfect spam filter), it works well enough for our needs, as well as some of our customers.

Services start at $3 per year, per email address.  For business users mostly, or those with their own domains/mail servers.

Check out Google Apps Message Security here . 

This is a disk that does many things, including resetting of the Windows Administrator password if you have forgotten it.

I have not tested this, so use at your own risk.

You will have to know how to create a boot disk from the image file download, and then boot to the disk to use the tools. Advanced users only.

I've frequently wanted to download videos from Youtube so I would not have to visit the site and wait for the download everytime I wanted to view the video.  There are many free tools to download the videos, but most download it in the native .flv format, which requires a standalone Flash Video player to play. 

With the Free FLV Converter, you can download the video and by default, it will convert the file to AVI format for play with Winamp or Microsoft Video Player.  Be sure to set the output path so you can find the file after download, and then paste the URL into "Add link" box and press "Add".

When you install Free FLV Converter, be sure to disable the Dealio toolbar (it is adware) and the option to Set Yahoo! as my default search engine to keep from cluttering up your browser with unnecessary toolbars and changing your search preferences.

Over on PC Magazine's site is a review of tax software . They compare TurboTax, H&R Block TaxCut and TaxACT.

The bottom line: TurboTax is still the best for most people, but it can be pricey for some versions.