For some of you out there, all things techy and geeky do not play a big part of your daily job, and a lot of what we have covered in these articles so far may seem a world away from your understanding. However, for many of you, you may be aware of the growing need to understand some of these topics because your kids or grandkids are right into it, and you want to still play the role of parent/grandparent. We’d like to help you out.

There are so many great uses for the modern technology that permeates our lives, but there are some not so good uses as well. There are some pretty scary stories circulating about young people not realising the danger potential in technology such as camera phones and social networking sites, and hearing that kind of thing on the news can be a bit unnerving.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had your own personal geek adviser on call to help you understand such things? Well, while we can’t be on call literally, we’d like you to treat this column as being that adviser. If you have a particular technology you’re trying to get the grasp of, or if there is something geeky that your kids are in to that you don’t understand, contact us and we’ll see if we can help. We’ll do our best to answer the questions that come in and provide you with some advice on topics related to those you ask about.

To ask your question, go to the Contact tab. Then just enter your details and type your question about anything geek and press ‘submit’. Let us know what you want to know and we’ll see if we can help you out.

So, are you sick of everything on TV being a variant on CSI? Shortland Street driving you crazy with its lack of morals? Never fear, that there is an alternative – and it doesn’t require you to pay a fortune every month to Sky!

If you have a satellite dish already on your roof (got Sky Satellite, or had it in the past – you should have one suitable) then there’s a large number of channels available to you right now – all you need is to pick up a satellite decoder. Sites like www.freeviewshop.co.nz can supply you with all you need, and with a little bit of work you can set the decoder up to get all the Freeview channels available (which there’s already more then on normal tv), and also a range of other channels broadcast free to air as well. www.freeviewshop.co.nz/channels.html has a full list of the channels available. And if you don’t already have a satellite, these places will sell you a full setup so you can get the satellite and install it yourself – some will even come and install the dish for you.

Why, you might ask, is this relevant to the Catholic Geek however? That’s because included in these free to air channels are a number of Christian broadcasting channels – in fact, one of the channels is EWTN (www.ewtn.com), the Catholic broadcasting network. The only caveat is for some of these channels you might need a second satellite dish if you want to be able to watch both Sky/Freeview and some of the other free to air channels. You can stop watching all the rubbish on TV and watch something good for a change J.

So, are you sick of everything on TV being a variant on CSI? Shortland Street driving you crazy with its lack of morals? Never fear, that there is an alternative – and it doesn’t require you to pay a fortune every month to Sky!

If you have a satellite dish already on your roof (got Sky Satellite, or had it in the past – you should have one suitable) then there’s a large number of channels available to you right now – all you need is to pick up a satellite decoder. Sites like www.freeviewshop.co.nz can supply you with all you need, and with a little bit of work you can set the decoder up to get all the Freeview channels available (which there’s already more then on normal tv), and also a range of other channels broadcast free to air as well. www.freeviewshop.co.nz/channels.html has a full list of the channels available. And if you don’t already have a satellite, these places will sell you a full setup so you can get the satellite and install it yourself – some will even come and install the dish for you.

Why, you might ask, is this relevant to the Catholic Geek however? That’s because included in these free to air channels are a number of Christian broadcasting channels – in fact, one of the channels is EWTN (www.ewtn.com), the Catholic broadcasting network. The only caveat is for some of these channels you might need a second satellite dish if you want to be able to watch both Sky/Freeview and some of the other free to air channels. You can stop watching all the rubbish on TV and watch something good for a change J.