XM and Sirius to Wed?

It looks like satellite radio customers, and prospective customers, will have some new options by the end of the year. The two big satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius, might be merging in the near future. The merger still has to be approved by the FCC and Department of Justice but shareholders in both companies have approved the concept (each side voted over 90% in approval). If the merger is approved more pricing options will be available. This is a good thing since I’ve always thought that $13 a month is a little pricy for radio (but hey, I’m cheap). Plans could start at $6.99 a month and range up to $16.99 a month depending on what kind of package you want. The latter will include the option to add channels from the other carrier and keep what you have already.

What’s that you say? Wouldn’t that make it a monopoly? XM and Sirius reason that they have plenty of completion from other digital music sources such as MP3 players and cell phones that can play music to keep them from having an advantage. I’m kind of split on this one, but my first thought was that they are the big names in satellite radio and what other company offers what they do in the US? They’ll have the only satellite radio for American consumers. However, the price cuts and option to get channels from the other service that you aren’t currently on will be a big plus.

GeekByte: Keep Your PC Up To Date

One thing I’ve noticed with a lot of users is that they don’t keep their home PC’s updated. The nice thing is that most of your important software has the ability to automatically update itself. Usually the biggie is the antivirus. There are a lot of people out there who don’t realize that their software needs to update to know the latest viruses out there. Make sure your antivirus is doing automatic updates on a regular basis, and while you’re in there check what the date is on your last update file. A couple of days old is ok, but if it’s more than that then you need to update it. You also want to make sure your antispyware software is updating as well. Just like virus definitions, you need to keep your spyware definitions current so that the software will recognize any new threats.

If you’re running Windows make sure to have the Automatic Updates turned on. You can configure this setting under the Control Panel. When Microsoft releases a new update your computer will alert you and install it based on the settings in the Automatic Update configuration. You can choose to have them alert you before downloading, download it and then alert you before installing, or download and install without alerting you. These updates will keep you safe by patching any security holes that you have, and will provide you with service packs for your operating system.

You might also want to download the service packs to Microsoft Office if you own it. I’ve run into a few issues with setting up an email account in Outlook before because it didn’t have the necessary patch level to work with the server’s settings. A simple service pack install did the trick. Most of the time the service packs for a product like Office aren’t that big of a deal if you don’t have them installed, but if you are having any kinds of problems then you might want to look at installing them. You can download the service packs and other updates for Office from Microsoft’s Office website.

All in all keeping your PC safe is a big deal. One of the easiest things you can do is keep up with the latest updates for your computer. Of course safe browsing and safe Internet activity is always a must, but the patches will give you a good start to keeping the ‘puter nasties out of your PC.