In the spirit of the season, I have a goody package to ship out to one lucky winner. The main prize is an Antec power supply tester. The package will also include a T-Shirt or two, and maybe some other tech-oriented gadget. The only requirement for eligiblity is for you to reply to this post with a link to your favorite tech site, or a tech tip that you find particularly useful. The winner will be chosen at random (by post #) from all replies posted prior to 10:00PM CST on 11/8/06.

Good luck!

edit for typo

Thanks to everyone for the links/tips. And the winner is...post #15 - NeoHyd

Great place for info and help with A/V stuff:

http://www.avsforum.com

PC STATS

http://www.annoyances.org/

Lots of useful stuff on Windows.

I got helpful info from here in the past, http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/

Lots of useful information in the forums at:
http://www.broadbandreports.com

Forums link:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forums/all

To be honest i use google for about anything. Just search for whatever trouble i or someone else is having.

It may not be much, but probably my favorite troublshooting trick is msconfig. Click start, run, type msconfig and hit enter. The click the Startup tab and uncheck/disable whatever junk you don't want to start. I use it quite often.

www.regedit.com

This site is great for finding those registry changes that enable/disable features. I use it almost everytime I build a new machine.

This has been a helpful site for me:
http://forums.techguy.org

I personally own a Dell Axim X51V, so this is a very useful site for Dell Axim owners:
http://www.aximsite.com

I find this site to be extremely useful when trying to identify running processes.

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintas...processlibrary/

sprint dicussions
http://sprintusers.com/forum/

deal of the day tracker
http://www.dodtracker.com/hotlist.html

I'm not sure if you wanted the tech site to be "help" oriented, mine isn't really. But here's my favorite tech show:

http://www.hak5.org/

Lots of neat little hacks and mods on this show and a pretty active user base on their forums that improve on the stuff seen on the show.

somehow I always find myself going to Slipstick.com

I don't have a single favorite website or tip, but I find myself using the resources on TechNet and Microsoft KB articles quite often. Here's a great resource of How-to articles.
Microsoft TechNet How-to Index

Get statistics of any server hosting a website (like, what is it running, how long the server is up)
http://uptime.netcraft.com/

get any website registration information
http://www.whois.net/

Good Source of some nifty software projects
http://www.sourceforge.net/

I love a good game.

However, I have no clue what the prize is or what it does. And I'm in no position to give out advice.

Oh, well. Guess I'll check out the next one.

Thanks!

Codestuff Starter Homepage
Softpedia download mirror

While not a tech site as such, this little app is extremely useful in streamlining Windows startup. With it, you can pick and choose the applications that run when your machine boots up. For instance, you can disable Adobe pre-loader, a nearly completely useless program that otherwise wastes system resources, or the QuickTime taskbar application (another program that does nothing useful, as far as I can tell, because you can still watch the videos in or out of browsers).

Download this program from the mirror, to keep help keep the coder's lycos page up; it is very small program as well (200k).

You may think I'm being a suck-up but seriously if I ever have issues this is where I turn first and do a search.

Bargainshare's Computer Help Forum

I also like checking out reviews and downloading from www.cnet.com

Oh ... and that one where you can see how fast your bandwidth connection is http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

I use PCPitStop to compare system specs.

I usually turn to the Google groups search engine for usenet first...

http://groups.google.com/

I was gonna post that one too. This is where I usually go if I can't find what I need on Google.

Bah, Biz posted my favorite tech forum already- right here!

I use this one quite a bit too, though:
Startup Applications List

Darnit, Biz beat me to it....wanted to say that this is my favorite computer help forum:

http://www.bargainshare.com/index.php?showforum=22


Was using this one last week:
Registry WhoIs search

I use Network Magic for securing my wi-fi network, printer sharing, and file/folder sharing.

These may or may not count as "tech" tips, but here we go:

- Dust your computer often! I find myself emptying a can of compressed air at a time, cleaning out the fans, fan grilles, and especially the CPU heatsink! I've seen temps drop 2-5C from dusting alone. For some people I know, this is the only time their computer is ever shut down or rebooted
- Defrag at least once a month, more often the more you use your computer.
- Backup, backup, backup...you never know what can happen to all your data.
- Update, update, update...see above.

I like to group these activities and do them all at once on a given day. For example, every month I'll defrag, backup, and update whatever is necessary. Every other month I'll do all of the above as well as the dusting.

When it comes to PC component reviews, like motherboards, video cards, and other performance related items, I always like the benchmark tests and reviews at Tom's Hardware and see what they have to say about the so-called "new technology."

Good luck to all!

http://www.videohelp.com/

Go here for help with DVD burning, and related hardware and software, hacks, etc.

My tip is to grab ahold of friend who is good with computers and never let go. Do little favors for him/her whenever you have the chance, because unlike appliance problems which happens once in a blue moon, computer problems are everyday things and sometimes it's not even a computer problem, more like computer advice.

When that friend knows you really appreciate him/her, he/she'd be more happy to be of aid when you need help or have a question.

If you're one of the computer technical people, be prepared to be showered with favors!

//krunk (^_^x)

This site...

http://www.komando.com

has helped my father and friends so many times.

you can elect to recieve daily tips or daily fun websites and can opt-out at any time, or you can just use her site to solve computer problems.

She has helped in the past with norton, windows, office, spyware, virii, and general computer issues...

PS. SHE IS HOT

Here's a bunch:

MozillaZine Forums: for all things Mozilla, plus other tech stuff
Neowin.net: computer news and discussion; customizing Windows
Ars Technica: "PC Enthusiast's Resource"
Brighthand: PDA and Smartphone news and discussion (I have a Dell Axim 50v)

Digg
It's a pretty decent site for tech news and tech tips. You have to filter it to view only technology though, otherwise you have to deal with real-world news.

When all else fails, ask one of your kids (or even grandkids)...

Got to be www.engadget.com

Thanks!

http://www.bargainshare.com/index.php?showtopic=91865
This website link is the most useful website link because you can find other useful website links at this link. Thanks!!hope that I can find my luck at this contest

Some useful sites to find information about hoaxes, virus related and general:

HOAXBUSTERS Home Page http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/

Symantec Security Response - Hoax Page: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html

VMyths.com http://www.vmyths.com/

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Computers (Viruses): http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/virus.htm

Congrats NeoHyd!

Great contest, JDMnAR! Thanks!

Congratulations NeoHyd

Congrats NeoHyd

Congrats NeoHyd!

I can't believe I lost again!!!
Congrats NeoHyd!

Next contest is being run by Monga here:
Bargainshare Holiday Contest!

Didn't you hear? Squirrels aren't eligible

Wow!!!!

This is is the first time ever in my life I won a contest...
Thanks JDMnAR and B$.