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If you haven’t heard of CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act), it’s a bill that is designed to allow private companies to lawfully share data with the U.S. governments much easier. The bill passed congress but was threatened with a veto from the Obama administration and didn’t garnish much support in the Senate. As a result, the senate has created bill s.2105 titled the Cyber Security Act (CSA). What does this mean?...

What Is It? Think Candy Crush meets Godzilla. Instead of the hero saving the world, in this game you’re an alien weapon. You match color segments of the weapon. The more you match, the more you get to destroy of the planet. Each level gives you a fake news report to move the story along. The game is by the same people who did Fruit Ninja. Players love matching games. It’s about skill and pattern recognition....

Right click on the Desktop and select New » Shortcut. Type: shutdown.exe -s -t 00 then Click Next. Give the shortcut a name such as Power Off or Shutdown. The Shutdown shortcut appears on the Desktop. Right click it and select Properties. The Shutdown Properties windows opens. Select the Shortcut tab and click Change Icon. Now select the icon you want to use. Here I’m picking the familiar power off icon....

X-Men: The Animated Series If it weren’t for this animated series, which ran for five seasons beginning in 1992, there would have never been the popular X-Men film series. Originally aired on Fox Kids Network, X-Men: The Animated Series was based on the X-Men comic book series published by Marvel Comics, which were created by artist/co-writer Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee. The series featured the now-familiar characters of Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, Beast, and many more....

After downloading the image, you can create an installation SD card or Flash Drive following these instructions. Or you can create an installation flash drive or DVD by using the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (which works with other versions of Windows too). Or you can use the ISO file to run a portable version of Windows from a flash drive. If you plan on doing a clean reinstall, make sure to check out our article on collecting your software product keys, including your Windows key....

When you come across a funny cat video that you “must-have” on YouTube, there are several different services or extensions you can use. Today I’ll show you the easiest way I’ve found for Firefox or Google Chrome. Download and install Easy YouTube Video Downloader for either Firefox or Google Chrome or both if you use them. (Download Links Below) After installing the Easy YouTube Video Downloader extension, start browsing YouTube....

Check it out. Use the Microsoft Excel TRIM Function to Remove Extra Spaces Some people get a little overexcited with the space bar when entering data. Things get worse when you copy and paste them in. To get rid of those pesky extra spaces, use the TRIM function. Use the Microsoft Excel SUBSTITUTE Function to Remove Special Characters Trimming is all well and good. But what if some goofball put line breaks into your Excel spreadsheet?...

It’s that time of year again where hospitals, clinics, and stores start advertising flu vaccines. As we transition into the winter flu season, no doubt you “health minded” groovyReaders would like to know the Flu Trends in your area. Google Flu Trends was launched November 2008 as a collaboration of searches related to “the flu” and the location and geographic area they originated. Over the past year they have upped the game, and Thursday morning 16 additional countries have been added to the flu tracking program which now covers a whopping 37 languages....

Update: It is back up here in DC as of 9:00pm EDT Moments ago Facebook updated their Twitter page letting users know that they’ve “fixed the issue”, but so far I’ve still been unable to login. Unlike Twitter, when Facebook breaks it doesn’t even show a fail whale, it’s just down! As usual Twitter is being bombarded by related comments complaining about the outage. Is Facebook working for you? Drop a reply below with your location and whether or not you can access Facebook....

It didn’t take long to run into my first issue after I upgraded my Dell Latitude D620 to Windows Vista SP1 RC1. After the final reboot, my Sound Card quit working. When I noticed it, I tried to adjust my sound, but Vista told me “No Sound Device Present.” Just for the sake of testing, I rebooted my notebook, but the problem didn’t resolve itself. Fortunately, the fix was groovy, and I didn’t even have to scrub the DELL site for new drivers....

What Is It? Flowing is a little bit of white noise, meditation, and a little bit of relaxation app. The white noise has settings for meditation music, raindrops, birds, and running water. The app gives you three music choices and lets you control the amount and mix of other noises. Most white noise apps I’ve used, even free ones, give you more control than Flowing. I found you can only control the intensity of the sound elements, not the variety....

“I just got a $1 credit for music from @amazonmp3. Click http://amzn.to/AFlt0P to get yours. #hollerforadollar.” This deal ends March 5, 2012, at 11:59 PM PST. Both of these are done automatically from the button on the linked page below. Comment Name * Email * Δ Save my name and email and send me emails as new comments are made to this post.

Back in 2009, I reported that Microsoft was killing off their Microsoft Money product line after ten years of development. I was sorry to see it go but oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes. For those of you who are still running an old copy of Microsoft Money, today Microsoft released what appears to be its final version of Microsoft Money called – Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe Sunset....

Now that the week is coming to an end, it’s time to kick back, relax, and do some science! Well, simple science that is –let’s not get into anything too crazy. While some engineers are kicking back and playing the guitar, you could be building a motor using 3 simple ingredients; 1 AA Battery, a small neodymium magnet, and a short piece of copper wire. Want to learn how? Check out the video below!...

Antipodes Map is a groovy Google Mapping algorithm that lets you see the exact opposite of your relative location on Earth. Or in other words if you dug a hole straight down through the center, this is where you would end up. To use the Antipodes Map just drag around the top map to any location you like. The market will automatically center itself on the map screen. The bottom map will also automatically update to show you your opposite location....

To promote the new Steam platform for Mac, Valve is allowing anyone with a steam account to “purchase” Portal free. That’s right, no trial, no expiration, no strings attached. Once you add Portal to your steam account, it’s yours, free, forever. Steam doesn’t care if you are using Windows or Mac, they just want to give you some free Portal action. The only catch (if you could call it one) is that you only have until May 24th to add it to your Steam account....

Book of Mozilla Want an excerpt from the great testament book of Mozilla? Just type: about:mozilla into the search box and you’ll get the following message, and it just might change your life. Message from Robots If you’re a fan of robots, just type: about:robots in the Search bar to get this message. But remember…they have a plan. Don’t Void the Firefox Warranty If you’ve ever done some “under the hood” customizing of Firefox you’ve seen this message....

In some of these cases (not including theft or accidental damage), you’ll be in warranty territory. You can usually get your phone, laptop, or peripheral repaired or replaced for free a period of 1 to 3 years after purchase. But when that warranty period expires, you’re on your own unless you buy more coverage via insurance or an extended warranty. Since you’re reading groovyPost, we’re going to assume that you’re savvy enough to know that the extended warranty from Best Buy and the smartphone/iPhone insurance from Verizon or AT&T are exorbitantly overpriced....

Login to your Gmail account and click on the + icon next to mail. Click on Contacts. Under My contacts click on New Group. Name the email group and click OK. Now add contacts to the group. Click on the Group name in the left sidebar and click on Add to “Group Name” button. Enter the email address of the person you want to add to the group and click the Add button....

Out with the old and in with the new. It is time for spring cleaning at Google and they are clearing out some of the older services to simplify things. Old unused Blogger accounts are on the chopping block, as well as the Google Video service that has already stopped allowing uploads over 2 years ago. Legacy Blogger accounts getting axed This is only regarding Blogger accounts that were made prior to 2006, AND those said accounts that haven’t logged in since 2007....