WARNING! Your Internet connection is not optimized!

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

Banner ads are a real and somewhat necessary part of our Internet world. You see banner ads at the top of nearly every Web site you visit. 

In the past year, one particular ad seems to pop up more frequently than others. It reads something like this:

WARNING! Your Internet connection is not optimized. Click Here to boost your Internet speed!

The ad cleverly (some people say deceptively) resembles a Window’s warning box and thus looks legit. However, the warning is simply an advertisement. 

Don’t fall prey to it. Clicking on the ad will lead you to their web site where you will be asked to lay out $30. If you actually see any gains in speed, they will be negligible and intermittent.

Save your money and be aware of those flashing banner ads. Always keep in mind that they are advertisements, nothing more.

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Use the Internet to stop solicitor calls

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

Two years ago, Colorado became one of the first states to institute a "no-call" list that consumers could sign up for to prevent solicitation phone calls. This past week, the FTC started a national "no-call" list. These lists must be checked by phone solicitation companies every three months to updated their databases. If a solicitor calls you and you are registered on the "no-call" list, you can file a complaint and the solicitor will be fined fairly substantially ( up to $11,000 per incident for the national list).

As opposed to spam (unsolicited email), phone solicitors are regulated and must comply to certain rules. Therefore, these lists do work. Colorado residents who signed up two years ago report that their phone solicitation calls are almost nil. In less than twenty-four hours, the national list had almost one million people sign up. The FTC expects nearly sixty million numbers to be registered by next summer. 

Enough background, to sign up for the national list:

  1. Click Here to reach the National Do Not Call Registry 
  2. Click Register Now
  3. Enter up to three phone numbers (including your area code)
  4. Enter your email address (I’ll tell you why in a minute)
  5. Click the Submit button
  6. Confirm that you typed everything correctly and Click the Register button
  7. Within a few minutes, check your email and click on the link provided to finalize your registration

The FTC uses your email to verify the information you entered in the form.

Click here for a list of the thirty-three states that have no-call lists and links to their sites.

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Tired of looking at clouds?

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

Here is a quick way to add new wallpaper to your desktop as you browse around the Internet (this tip works with Netscape, Internet Explorer, and AOL):

  1. RIGHT Click on any image on any web page
  2. Click on “Save Image as Wallpaper” or “Set as Wallpaper”

That’s it!  A simple tip with a fun result!

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Search the Internet Quicker

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

Many Internet surfers have discovered and benefited from a great search engine called Google. Doing basic searches with this engine can reduce the time it takes to find relevant information. 

Most good web sites will have a search engine that just searches its own site (see ours on the bottom of most of our pages). As helpful as these can be, they sometimes fall short in finding the precise information you are looking for. Using a feature of Google called ‘site searching’, you can have Google’s search engine do the work that the site’s engine cannot. 

In our example, we want to look up articles about fly fishing. If we search for fly fishing as a term by itself, the return is enormous. Let’s say our favorite outdoor magazine is Field and Stream, we could limit the search to just its web site by typing the following in Google’s search box:

fly fishing site:www.fieldandstream.com

Type your search word or term, then a space and then site:web address. Use this search technique for searching any web site using Google and you will find your searching success rate rise.  

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Quickly Navigating to a website

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

When you read about a web site or hear one advertised on the radio or TV, do you know hot to get to it quickly?  If no, here’s how:

This tip will work with ANY online service or browser or operating system.  

As you are reading this tip, look toward the top of your monitor.  Do you see a long white box with an http:…. address in it?  This is called the browser address or location bar.  You will interact with it to successfully complete this tip.

  1. Click ONE time anywhere in the long white address bar toward the top of the screen (the current address will become highlighted)
  2. Type the address of the web page you are looking for (ex:  www.helpmerick.com   note that you do NOT have to type the http:// part of the address)
  3. Push ENTER or RETURN on your keyboard and you will be transported the address you typed.

That’s it, no more complicated than these three steps.  Just make sure that your spelling is correct and that you use periods instead of commas. 

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Navigating the Web

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

Just starting out on the Web? This tip is for you!

This tip will work with ANY online service or browser or operating system.  

When you are looking at your Internet screen,  do you see a long white box with an http:…. address in it?  This is called the browser address or location bar.  

  1. Click ONE time anywhere in the long white address bar toward the top of the screen (the current address will become highlighted)
  2. Type the address of the web page you are looking for (ex:  www.yourpcpartner.com   note that you do NOT have to type the http:// part of the address)
  3. Push ENTER or RETURN on your keyboard and you will be transported the address you typed.

That’s it! No more complicated than these three steps.  Just make sure that your spelling is correct, use periods instead of commas, and don’t use spaces. 

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Our Top Internet Information Sites 2005

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

We started publishing this list about three years ago. I fully admit that I am an information junkie and enjoy finding the answers to questions as soon as they come up. I tend to use a core group of sites to find my information. In this list you will see some perennial favorites and some new ones that I started using over the past year.

In no particular order, my favorite information gathering web sites are:

  • Google - Hands down the best place to start when you are searching the Internet

  • Google News – An often overlooked function of Google that let’s you research news sources world wide

  • Food TV – An excellent place to gather all kinds of recipes and cooking hints

  • IMDB - This massive site known as the Internet Movie Database provides any kind of information you could want regarding movies, actors, and more.

  • Merriam Webster Dictionary – A standby on my bookshelf for years, this web reference provides tons of word tools including pronunciations, definitions, and a thesaurus .

  • Microsoft Support - The same massive database that Microsoft tech support people use.

  • Spyware Warrior – Spy and adware have become the largest (preventable) threat to Windows computing. This site sits on the front lines fighting this beast.

  • Download.com - I love using small developer programs that solve a particular digital need. This site let’s you search and download the best of today’s shareware.

  • Bartlett’s Quotations – I think you have heard of this one.

  • My Yahoo! – My very own customizable newspaper…FREE and updated up to 12 times per day!

  • Big Book or Dex Online - Yellow pages for the ENTIRE United States!

  • Intellicast – More weather information than you can shake an umbrella at!

  • Wikipedia – An amazing project dubbed ‘the people’s encyclopedia’. This online encyclopedia allows anyone to contribute and edit the stories. You have to check this site out!

  • Stumble! – Although not technically an information site, StumbleUponIt is a toolbar you add to your browser (we highly recommend doing this only in Firefox). Clicking it randomly jumps you to a site from the list of categories  you have pre-chosen. We have found some great sites with this service.

Many other great and useful web sites are available online, but these are my primary information gathering sites. Call or write us today and let us know which ones YOU find the most helpful!

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Making the most of a dialup connection

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

This tip has the dual function of teaching you how to not only get around the Internet faster, but also understand how Windows can allow you to do more than one task at a time.

First, when you use a search engine, it returns many different answers for you to sift through.  The common way to sift through these is to click on one of the answers, examine it and then hit the back button on the browser to return to the list.

A quicker way to find what you are looking for is to:

  1. Right Click on a link from the answer list
  2. Click on the open link in a new window option

This starts a brand new window for you to load the page.  So, instead of waiting for it download, immediately push Alt+tab on your keyboard OR click on the alternate browser button on your taskbar to return to the list of answers.

Repeat this process as much as five times to open up web pages simultaneously. 

Another situation where this works arises when you get to a page that you want to keep open, but you also want to open another page at the same time.  To do this, simply push Control+N on your keyboard to open another window.

This technique takes a little time to get comfortable with, but once you get it, you will be a happier web user.

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Lose the ads in the Netscape Messenger (email) Preview Pane

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

Here is how to get rid of those email ads from Netscape:

1. Click on Start –> Find –> Files or folders 

2. Type: *prefs.js in the "find" box 

3. Make sure the Look in box says My Computer 

4. Click Find now 

5. The search should yield at least two files (depends on how many profiles you have set up in Netscape) 

6. RIGHT click on each of the files and click Edit 

7. Type or copy and paste the following line into the file: user_pref("mailnews.start_page.enabled", false); 

8. Make sure that you type it EXACTLY as above starting with user and ending with the semi-colon. 

8. Close and save the files

Make sure to perform this procedure without Netscape being open.

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Learn To Identify Search Engine Ads

Posted on December 31, 2005 by Rick

A search engine is a website or part of a website that allows you to search either the entire Internet, or a given website for specific information.
Google, Yahoo, Excite and Dogpile are just a few of the common search engines that search the entire Internet for information on any word or topic you type into their search box.

As you may well imagine, it is not an easy thing to create software that searches the entire Internet with accuracy. Rest assured, it is even tougher to find people to design such software for free.

Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, Excite, and every other search engine requires money to stay afloat.

How do companies like these, that provide a free service, stay in business. The answer is almost always the same – Advertising.

When you type a word or phrase into Google or any other search engine, the first few results are typically from companies that have paid to show up as one of the first results. Typically these sites are marked as paid ads, but not always.

This isn’t to say not to click on the paid ads in search results, but it is important to realize that the first few results are not necessarily there because they are the most popular or even the best results for what you were searching for.

Follow this link for an example of how Google uses advertising. Notice the top two results say "Sponsored Links" at the far left. Also in the far left is an entire column of advertisements.

Notice the "Sponsored Links" text above.  This is an obvious indicator that you are looking at a Google Ad.

Yahoo looks almost identical, except for the term "SPONSORED RESULTS"- see below.

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