Thor Schrock was select as one of the 50 top candidates for one of the 12 spots on the web's first reality show. Vote for him now!

Thor Schrock has auditioned for the Next Internet Millionaire web reality show. If he is able to win the competition, he will be donating the $25,000 to various charities in and around Lincoln, NE.

Thor Schrock discovered Sunday evening that 70+ pages of unauthorized materials had been uploaded to the NOAA.gov website in an apparent hacking incident.

Local computer company owner Thor Schrock will testify on Thursday that LB583, the Electronics Recycling Systems Act, is a poorly written bill.

Schrock Innovations has assumed hosting and maintenance duties related to the Lincoln Independent Business Association Website after winning a juried bidding process by unanimous decision.

Nationally recognized youth football coach Dave Cisar is moving his coaching youth football resource website to Schrock Innovations' web servers.

Is Microsoft OneCare the
long awaited magic pill?

How OneCare Pricing Stacks Up

Microsoft released pricing information that compared its OneCare product against Symantec's popular Norton and McAfee security products. Since OneCare comes with a three-computer license, Microsoft compared its $50 product against pre-rebate pricing for the three license versions of Norton System Works ($119.99) and McAfee Security Suite ($139.99).

Obviously, this makes $50 look like a real value. However, many users only buy single computer licenses when they purchase security products, which can cost anywhere from $30 to $60 before rebates. So in actual practice, $50 a year is in line with what you currently pay for your security coverage on a single PC.

What Does OneCare Do?

The main thrust of the application is to introduce Microsoft as an Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, and Firewall provider. The Redmond, WA company stuck a few toes in the water when they released MS Anti-Spyware, a free spyware removal utility, and their Windows Firewall that arrived as part of XP Service Pack 2. OneCare may in fact be the culmination of those experiences into a unified product.

In addition to security functions, OneCare will use Microsoft Update to ensure you have all of the latest patches and updates for your Microsoft software. The program will also back up your files for you if you have access to an external hard drive.

The lightest offering in the product comes in the form of its automated tune-up functionality. OneCare will clean unneeded files from your hard drive and defragment it automatically. Speaking for a company that specialized in maintaining PCs, there is a lot more to keeping a PC running smoothly than a disk cleanup and a defrag. But it is a start I suppose.

Should I Download the Beta?

For those who do not know what "beta" means I will offer the following explanation. A beta version of a program is a version that has passed all major testing and *should* work on your PC. Microsoft has publicly announced that it will strive to get its smaller products to the marketplace more quickly so they can better compete with innovative companies like Google. One way to do that is to release a beta version of your software and let end-users find the problem and suffer the consequences. I have not installed OneCare on my main PC, and I would not recommend you install it on yours - yet. That is, unless you like being a guinea pig.

Where Can I Get the Beta?

You can download the beta from Microsoft from their website at http://www.windowsonecare.com/prodinfo/default.aspx. Microsoft is trying to encourage people to try the beta by offering a discounted subscription ($19.99) to the users who install the beta on their computers. Again, I will caution you that you install this software at your own risk, and that Microsoft is not responsible for any undesirable results.

Conclusion

If you are brave, download the beta and give it a try. If you are looking for one product to do it all under one hat for one price, OneCare is certainly a step in the right direction, but in my opinion it is far from perfect.