Ubuntu – Day 5

I haven’t ported much of my data to this computer from my Windows’ computer, but haven’t missed any of it yet either. I do have this system hooked into my home network so I can access shared folders on the Windows’ machine if I need those files. I mentioned on the show today that one of the huge reasons I like Mozilla Firefox is the availability of “extensions”. Extensions are little...

K-Meleon – Super small browser

Garry called in today and asked if we had mentioned anything about the K-Meleon browser. We hadn’t, but now we have. Thanks Garry!

All Q&A Session – July 2007

I don’t do it too often, but this month I decided to hold an all Q&A (2 hours) user group meeting. It truly is amazing how many questions 30 or 40 ravenous computer users can generate. Sometimes one question leads to another, and an entire “topic” can take up a half hour. You have to be at one of the meetings to truly experience the type of knowledge and information that gets shared and explored. Some of...

Magnifying Your Screen

With today's higher resolution screens, some computer users have trouble making out some items on the screen. Microsoft has a built-in screen magnifier that works OK, but isn't perfect or necessarily intuitive. Recently, I found a great application, called the Torian Screen Magnifier , that magnifies any portion of your screen by simply moving the on-screen magnifying glass over the area you want magnified. It is...

Macintosh inching more and more

I really thought the computer world was simple. Ultra-geeks used Linux, cool cats with a little attitude used Macintosh and the rest of us used Windows. None of the three major platforms worried to much about the other and software remained pretty much platform specific. Then two years ago Apple released software for the Macintosh that allows Windows to be installed on their systems, an upstart Linux version called Ubuntu...

Mozilla Firefox Revisited

By Rick Castellini 2002. Revised by Adam Cochran 2007 Earlier this summer, my co-host, Adam, decided to do an 'on air' review of a product. The product he chose is Mozilla Firefox, an alternative web browser. Being on the radio and downloading, installing and reviewing software was a new experience for us, but the impression was instant and impressive for both of us. Mozilla loads most web pages much faster...

Do you really have that much time on your hands?

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I need to know. One of the most common responses I get from people who don't have a high speed Internet connection is, "I have plenty of time to wait and am in no hurry." While I admire the Zen like focus and calm nerves of these folks, I have to ask the obvious. "Really?" Today, I worked with a customer who lives literally in the middle of the mountains…the...

Open Multiple Home Pages with Mozilla Firefox OR I...

Now that Internet Explorer has caught up (sort of) with modern browsers, I wanted to point out yet another function of tabbed browsing (click here for the popular and informative tabbed browsing tip ). If you like to check multiple sites every day or maybe use your browsing sessions for research, let your browser do some of the work for you by opening multiple pages at the same time. Mozilla Firefox Open the first page you...

Temporary Internet Files – Don’t let t...

Cleaning out temporary files on our computers (see the archives for Disk Cleanup) remains an extremely important step in keeping them running clean and error free. Programs and Windows create temporary files, when needed, to perform certain functions. The Internet uses temporary files to store cookies, and recently visited web sites and their graphics. Temporary Internet files serve a useful function when you visit web sites...

Stop Windows Vista’s annoying “permiss...

One “feature” that Microsoft added to Windows Vista is the ability to stop programs (aimed at spyware and viruses) from starting to begin with. They implemented this in the form of the User Account Control (UAC). UAC asks you whether you want a program to continue or cancel once you have clicked on it. Again, the purpose is to warn you when an unknown or unwanted program asks to start, but the message comes up...

Dial-up users: Are you tired of waiting for email ...

I have been utilizing this tip much more lately as dial-up users get pummeled with email containing pictures that haven't been resized and an endless parade of forward spam with large attachments from friends and family with high speed connections. For every one megabyte of space an attachment contains, it takes 5-8 minutes for a dial-up user to download it. Many joke emails, slide shows or movies being passed around...

Remove or uninstall U3 Software from a flash drive

Many USB flash drives come pre-installed with software called U3. U3 is a small operating system that allows U3 enabled flash drives to run applications (like web browsers, email programs, password managers, and more) straight from the USB flash drive. The advantage is that you can use these applications on any computer with a USB port.  However, if you don't have a need to have these "portable" applications...

Delete only one entry from Internet Explorer Addre...

The address bar in Internet Explorer (or any web browser) allows you to type in known web sites and visit them quickly. Sometimes you might want to clean out individual entries from the address bar or history, but this isn't possible in Internet Explorer unless you edit the registry. Watch the video below to learn how to perform this delicate Windows tweak. The video has a surprise ending to make this process a whole lot...

Are you missing the Menu bar in Internet Explorer ...

Actually, Microsoft designed the new browser that way so that there is more room for browsing. However, if you want the menu bar (the one with File, Edit, View, Favorites, etc) back, follow these steps:   Start Internet Explorer Press and release the Alt key on your keyboard The menu bar will be visible, Click the View menu option Click Toolbars Click Menu Bar That will do it. You can't move the menu bar above...

SmitFraud & SpySheriff Beware we have a fix!!

There is a nasty group of spyware programs out there that not only hijack your browser home page, but they replace your desktop with a warning that your computer is infected and add icons to your system tray. What's worse is that all of these items are so linked that you can't get rid of any of them unless you get rid of all of them. Today I found a great tool that made removing these spyware programs simple. However,...