Although we now have 19″ and larger monitors on most new desktop computers, the text seems to shrink. Why is that? It has to do with screen resolution (how much information can be displayed). Screen resolutions on today’s monitors are up to 3X that of monitors we used just 6-8 years ago. We can see a lot more information, but often the text is too small to view for some computer users.
Never fear. Using this week’s tip, you can easily and quickly enlarge the text of any web page using only your keyboard and mouse. This tip will work with any web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc) and any operating system (Windows, Ubuntu, Mac OS X).
All you need is a mouse with a scroll wheel and your keyboard. This tip can be performed without the mouse as well, but I’ll touch on that later.
First, when you are reading a web site, particularly news web sites and blog type sites like mine, look for an indication of a printer friendly page. Often designated as Printer Friendly, Print this article, or simply Print, clicking this link brings Continue reading →
It seems that spyware, adware and other malware that doesn’t quite fall in the category of a virus grows by the day. Unfortunately, even the best protected computers and computer users can get hit by these sneaky destruction machines by tricking us (social engineering) to thinking we are either using, viewing or downloading something other than it is. In order to fight back, we need to be smarter Internet citizens in addition to properly protecting our computers.
Again, I’m talking mainly to Windows computer users since this scourge on digital society has little to no affect on Continue reading →
Spyware infections, on Windows based computers, continues to sky rocket. The average computer user suffers from this plague far more than a more technically savvy user. As more and more people get connected to the Internet, the ratio of technically savvy users drops and thus the increase in spyware infections.
Many people equate younger computer users with techno knowledge, but the opposite seems to hold true. Young computer users know how to use the technology, but don’t understand how it works or how to stay safe with it any better than an older computer user.
My most common computer help call starts like this, “My computer is extremely slow.” Or can start like this, “Something keeps popping up on my computer and I can’t do anything.” And my favorite, “My computer won’t do anything.” These calls come from computer users of all ages.
Search my site for the word spyware or prevention and learn how to keep your computer running clean and problem free so you never have to udder any of these phrases.
However, if you do become infected, it brings on feelings of helplessness, anger, frustration, bewilderment, and a sense of being violated. And unfortunately, you might have been doing all the right things and just made one small misstep. The problem becomes trying to figure out where the miscue took place. It could be as innocent as clicking a link from friend in an email, or not paying attention to a search result you click on, or you fall prey to a social engineering trap where you are tricked into thinking that something is legit when it is not.
By the time I arrive on the scene, the computer user forgot the exact time and/or steps that led to the computer’s current condition. And I can’t offer any solid reasons as to why the infection occurred since I wasn’t there watching the movements of the user. At this point, I begin to wonder whether 1) Microsoft will ever tighten the reigns on Windows enough to help stop this plague before it enters the computer (like Linux and Mac computers), 2) will all these infections eventually lead to decreased use of the Internet out of fear of being infected, or 3) do users simply put up with it and consider the problem worth the risk.
I absolutely abhor working with these types of problems, but unfortunately too many people get ripped off, get bad advice or never learn how to try and prevent the problem after it is fixed. For these reason, I trudge on fixing these problems and treat them as teachable moments.
Have you ever been infected with spyware/adware? How long did it take you to get it fixed? Did you have to employ extra help either through a computer shop, guru, or telephone tech support? How much did it cost you, if anything? Did it make you use the web less?
Every day I make my appointed computer help rounds, someone marvels at my use of browser tabs. Tabbed browsing started almost 9 years ago with the Opera browser and continues today with the excellent implementation in Firefox. Internet Explorer finally got on board a couple of years ago and tabs work ok with it too.
If you are not using tabs in your Internet browsing, then you really aren’t browsing, your floundering around the Internets. Learn to use tabs, you can do it. Use my video tutorial (click here) to learn this helpful and time saving technique that will change the way you look and use the web.
Please DO NOT use the address bar as a repository to return to sites you use all the time…eventually they will get lost. The address bar history maintains a small amount of your recently visited site and can easily be wiped out via an update or disk cleaning and maintenance tools.
Instead, use the Favorites (Internet Explorer) or Bookmarks (Firefox and every other browser). Favorites/Bookmarks are designed to save and give you quick access to your most used sites and sites you just want to keep track of for later use. Also, you can back them up easily.
If you are like me, you visit a handful of web sites every single day and sometimes multiple times per day. Having bookmarks to these sites works fine, but that requires a minimum of three clicks to reach your favorite sites.
In this video, I describe how to get 1-click access to your favorites using the extremely underutilized Links toolbar (Internet Explorer) and the Bookmarks toolbar (Mozilla Firefox).
This tip requires no downloading and no installation of extra software. Everything is built-in to the browser and available to you right now. So watch the video and learn how to take charge of these extremely useful tools you never knew how to use!
Over the past two or there years, I have written many articles about Web 2.0 or cloud computing. Cloud computing means that you work with programs and/or data that are not installed or saved on your computer. Instead, the programs and/or data live on an Internet connected computer (server) somewhere else in the world. These computers provide security via the password and user name that you choose. Five reason come immediately to mind on why you should start moving your data and computing power to the cloud.
1. Although more powerful than ever before, computers have become more unreliable than ever.
In particular, Windows computers require more expertise to keep them safe, updated, and problem free than at any time in the short history of home computers. Macintosh and Linux operating systems certainly require less technical expertise from the security standpoint, but still rely on desktop applications to create, save and edit data. Web based (cloud) applications provide plenty of power and flexibility for the vast majority of computer users while also presenting a simpler interface.
2. You already spend 90% of your time in the cloud already.
Non-business computer users spend the majority of their computer time emailing, surfing and researching the web and playing online games. Transitioning to web based mail and web based word processing, spreadsheets and more is easy and free with products like Zoho Office, Google Docs and ThinkFree.
3. Digital photography is easier in the cloud…and cheaper.
Too many computer users do not know how to properly resize and attach photos to email or gauge how many photos to attach to email. You spend way too much money and time on ink cartridges and paper trying to print good quality pictures. All these problems are solved in the cloud by helping you organize your photos better, share them easier, and print them in higher quality in more formats professionally. Flickr, Picasa Albums, and albums and services from Shutterfly, Snapfish, Winkflash, and others help you do all these things much easier than any desktop application. For those who like to edit their photos, these services offer some limited editing, but Pixlr, Picnik, Fotoflexer, Snipshot, Photoshop Online, and many others provide more than enough power for almost any digital photographer.
4. You either don’t know how or are too lazy to backup your important data.
I admit that I’m putting a lot of faith in Web 2.0 companies, but I know they will do a better and more regular job of backing up your data than you currently do. These companies have their reputations and big bank rolls on the line to take backing up your data lightly. If your data is truly important to you, learn to back it up. In the interim, your data will be much safer online than it is right now on your unprotected computer with no backup plan at all. If I’ve stirred you a little to think about backing up your current data, read my tips about online backup services that truly do make backing up your data easier and safer than learning to burn DVD’s, setup and configure backup programs and then maintain them.
5. Using cloud computing strategies sets you free from any computer.
Since your data and applications live on the web and are accessed through a web browser, you no longer are tied to any one computer or operating system. As long as you have an Internet connection (high speed only) and a browser, you can work and play from any computer!
I keep urging you to learn about and use these services because they are coming down the pike and becoming more mainstream every day. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and other stalwarts of the desktop continue to make their own plans to finally come on board and offer more and more cloud computing options.
What do you think? Leave me a comment below to tell me about your cloud computing experiences and questions.
This tip falls in the category of “wow, that’s easy to do, I wish I would have known about it long ago!”
When you are on a particularly long web page and need to find a term or phrase, click on Edit from your menus, then Find (or Find in page on some browsers). The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + F. You will be presented with a small window that allows you to enter a word or phrase and then the computer will look for that word on the page and bring you right to it.
As with many other features, Mozilla Firefox’s implementation of this feature is superior to all other browsers, as it gives you helpful extras like find the next or previous occurrence of the word or phrase you are looking for and even has an option to highlight all the occurrences on the page. (See the accompanying picture).
This tip is especially helpful for genealogy researchers. Sometimes your eyes can become crossed looking for a surname in a sea of text. Use the find function instead and cut your work and eye strain in half!
If you need to look for the same term again on the same page, you will notice that the function gives you the option to find again without retyping.
This type of search works best with single words, but you can experiment with phrases as well.
You can also use the Find function in Word Processing documents, email, spreadsheets, and PDF files as well.
Watch the short video below to see this tip in action in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Many years ago, I shared with you how to back up your address book. We have talked about how to back up your favorites, but never written it down. This tip will walk you through saving your favorite places in case of a disaster. Even if you have thousands of favorites, they will easily fit on a floppy disk (if you still have one) or better still, a USB Flash drive.
Internet Explorer
Open Internet Explorer
Click File from the menus
Click Import/Export
Click Next
Click Export Favorites
Click Next twice
Click the Browse button and choose your flash drive or whatever drive you are saving the favorites to
Click Next
Click Finish
Mozilla Firefox 3.0
Start Firefox
Click Bookmarks –> Organize Bookmarks from the menus
Click Import and Backup
Click Export HTML
Choose where to save the bookmarks
Click Save
Mozilla Firefox 2.0
Start Firefox
Click Bookmarks –> Manage Bookmarks from the menus
Click File –> Export from the menus
Choose where to save the bookmarks
Click Save
AOL
Start AOL
Click the Favorites menu, and click Favorite Places
Click the Save/Replace button. The Save and Replace Your Favorite Places screen will appear
Click Save the Favorite Places for your current screen name
Click Ok. The Save As dialog box will appear
Choose where to save the favorite places
Click Save
If you need to restore your favorites for any of these browsers, follow all the same steps as above except use the Import function instead of Export. For a visual tour of this tip, watch the video below:
After running into this issue one to many times lately, I finally found a fast solution. Problem: Outlook users who want to export their address books (contacts) and import them into Gmail can get almost everything imported except street addresses. It’s maddening. Madness be gone, the solution is now just a few steps away.
Exporting your contacts from Outlook:
Open Outlook (note this is NOT Outlook Express)
Click File –> Import/Export
Click Export to a file
Click Next
Click Comma Separated Values (Windows) option
Click Next
Click Contacts from the list of your Outlook items on the next screen
Click Next
Click Browser and choose My Documents or the Desktop as the destination for your file
Type a name for the file (why not Contacts for Gmail)
Click OK
Click Next
Click Finish
Importing your Outlook contacts into Gmail
Log into your Gmail account
At the top right of the screen near the sign out option, click Older version (see image above)
Click Contacts on the left of the screen
Click Import
Click Browse
Find and click the file you exported from Outlook
Click Open
Click Import Contacts
After the import finishes, remember to click back to the Newer Version of Gmail in the upper right of the screen.
Gmail should now have all your contacts from Outlook complete with street addresses. Come on Google, fix the import function on the newer version of Gmail!
This is a reintroduction and retitling of a previous video/tip because of a copyright infringement complaint from Franklin Covey. Hopefully, the new title and verbiage will satisfy their legal staff.
All week long I help computer users of all ages and experience levels. Too often, I see that many computer users (beginners and experienced alike) do not utilize or know about some basic web browsing skills that will speed their work and give them less problems when using the Internet.
In this week’s tip, I will highlight the inefficient habits computer users use and replace them with tips that will make YOU a quicker and more profecient web user.
1. Using an old browser
No matter how old your computer is or what operating system you are using, DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER 6 (IE 6). IE 6 is late 20th century technology and is not compatible with much of the web today and it also poses the greatest security risks.
Instead, use Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or if you must use Internet Explorer, use version 7.
2. Using a search engine instead of the address bar
3. Closing the web browser or clicking the Home icon before going to another web site.
When changing channels on a television, you don’t always go back to channel 1, then go to the channel you wanted do you? Likewise, with the web, you can simply click a bookmark or type web address in the address bar to move on to a new web site. You don’t need to close the window or click Home first.
4. Keeping the default browser home page
Your Internet provider often installs their web site as your “home page” (the first page you see when you launch your browser). However, if you never use that page, change it to something you will use.
With older browsers (see Habit 1 above), we had little choice but to click on links, then the back button to reach our previous page. True, some people learned to use multiple browser windows, but even that is a dated technique now.
Modern browsers give us the efficiency and elegance of opening multiple pages in what are known as tabs. Tabbed browsing will drastically cut your use of the back button and change your web browsing life forever…for the better.
6. Wasting paper, time, and money by printing more information than necessary
The Internet definitely gave paper companies a new lease on life because we print more today than ever before. However, too often, Internet users want a certain amount of information from a web site and end up getting 6-8 or more extra pages of information they don’t need.
Instead, take advantage of this easy to follow tip that lets YOU select exactly what you want to print and print only that.
7. Search from a search engine site
Searching the Internet is by the greatest, in my opinion, function available for our computers. However, with modern browsers, again see Habit 1, there is no need to visit the search engine site to start your searches. Instead, use the built-in search bar in your browser. You can find it in the upper right corner of IE 7, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.
Watch the short video below to see all these tips in action and also use the links in this article for more details. Master all of these tips and you will be a web surfer with 7 highly effective habits!
Over the past two or there years, I have 
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HelpMeRick.com started as a monthly tip site for beginners in 1996, and now supports our popular call-in computer show, and hosts thousands of useful computer tips and links.