Special edition of Castellini on Computers Radio P...

This Friday there will be a special edition of the Castellini on Computers Radio program on our local public radio station, KAFM. Anyone can listen from any where by listening to the live web stream at the KAFM web site. Like all public radio stations, they host an annual fund raiser to keep the air waves open. The KAFM management asked if we would be willing to do a special edition of the show during the fund raiser,...

Is Skype quality getting worse?

Skype ranks as one of my all-time favorite web programs. For those who have never heard this name or weren’t sure what it is about, Skype allows you to make voice and or video calls from your computer to another Internet connected computer anywhere in the world for free. Skype also offers extremely low pricing for making computer to land line or cell phone calls as well. I use Skype to communicate with my brother in...

What kind of computer do 3 teenagers use?

An extremely slow and sick computer! Today, again, I ran across a family who has multiple teenagers (3 in this case) who use a computer that has become polluted with spy and adware. I see this situation again and again, week after week. This computer was less than 2 months old! Give the typical teenager a Windows based computer (doesn’t matter if it is XP or Vista) and within weeks (sometimes hours) the computer is...

Google Chrome Overview – Video Tip

Last week, Google released their own web browser, Chrome, to compete with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Many of you have asked my opinion and wondered what it all means. In a nutshell, I think that any competition is good competition. And with a name like Google behind the project, that adds even more fuel to the fire. Google Chrome is fast, easy on the eyes, but offers few features that...

Internet Explorer 7 – Tabbed Browsing –...

I posted this article nearly 2 years ago, but with the release of Google’s Chrome browser yesterday, I thought it was appropriate to bring this important tip back to the forefront again. Also, read my tip on the new Firefox 3 browser released earlier this summer. I have downloaded and tried out the new Google Chrome browser and look for a video and more comment about it coming up soon.  Windows XP users will all...

Firefox 3.0 is ready for download – go ahead...

Firefox 3.0 is now available for full download for the masses. It is reported to be the fastest version of firefox yet, and possibly one of the fastest browsers period. We have tested it for a while and it appears to be ready for use. Be careful if you run a lot of extensions, you will want to research and make sure that your extensions are compatible with 3.0. There are several new features to Firefox 3.0 which we will...

Surf faster with Firefox Custom Keywords – V...

You already know that I highly recommend the Mozilla Firefox web browser for fast and safe Internet surfing. This week, I discovered a couple of new techniques to use with Firefox that allow you to visit your most used sites by typing just a letter or two. And if that isn’t cool enough already, you can also use this technique to customize your searches and make them faster than ever as well. Firefox call these...

“If it is free, it must not be any good.R...

This statement was uttered by an imbecile. A customer of mine told me last week that he heard this quote from a tech person from some company after a discussion of AVG Free. The week before this customer’s computer was almost crippling slow primarily because it had one of the newer versions of Norton Internet Security installed. After taking Norton off the system (approximately 20-25 minutes to do so) and adding AVG,...

CNET Web 2.0 Awards

Get used to me writing more articles about Web 2.0 applications…applications that run in your web browser. I’ve written many already, but today I’m writing about the  CNET people’s choice awards for best Web 2.0 applications in ten categories ranging from productivity to entertainment. This is CNET’s second year compiling the awards. This year almost 2 million votes were cast for over 300...

PayPal Agrees

Last week I wrote a tip called 7 Habits of highly inefficient Internet Users.   The very first habit I wrote about was the use of old browsers. Literally, the next day PayPal (the leading online payment source for eBay and person-to-person payments) announced that it would stop supporting old browsers and users who did not upgrade to more modern and safer browsers would not be able to use the service. This will not...

Living online with your applications and data

Here I go again talking about online applications and data storage. I keep bringing it up because the idea makes more sense to me everyday. In just my first two days of work this week, I found multiple examples of how computing online instead of on your desktop makes sense for so many people. It will be a long time before serious photographers, movie makers, engineers, and graphic designers can make do with online...

2 fantastic alternatives to Mapquest maps

Mapquest.com used to be synonymous with online maps. They offered online maps when few others did and did a good job. Unfortunately, Mapquest hasn’t changed much since the late 90′s except get more and more advertisements hovering around their slow and out-dated system. Their innovation and improvements seemed to stop around the same time AOL bought them. For faster, easier, and better online mapping, I like two...

How to add the print and other buttons to Firefox ...

We love the Mozilla Firefox browser, but out-of-the-box it doesn’t show the print button. Also, some people like to have the Bookmark and History buttons available as well. This tip shows you how to add any or all of these buttons as well as others you might want. In Firefox, RIGHT click on a blank part of the toolbar (or Click View –> Toolbars –> Customize from the menus) Click and drag the buttons...

AVG Antivirus 8.0 Upgrade Advice

The past few days calls and emails started filtering in about the new AVG 8.0 version folks have seen appear on their free versions of AVG Antivirus. The common query is, “Should I upgrade?” No, home users of AVG Antvirus do not need to upgrade at all. The current free version of AVG will continue to be updated and as it has been for years. The new 8.0 version is the newest commercial product from AVG...

Zoho Writer – Video Tip

We have written quite a bit about Web 2.0 here at HelpMeRick.com and this week I decided to start a mini-series featuring my favorite Web 2.0 web site, Zoho. Zoho offers an online set of productivity tools unequaled anywhere else on the web. Many of the tools are offered at no cost and cover everything from word processing to project management. In this first installment, I take you on a short tour of the Zoho word processor...