5 Steps to Using Online Financial Sites Safely

Every year computer users who use the Internet to check account balances, transactions, and even paying bills grows by nearly 30%. According to one Pew study, more than 50 million Americans use online banking services. 50 million sounds like a large number, but that still reflects less than 50% of online American adults. Bank web sites continue to evolve by becoming easier to use, more secure, and more helpful than ever...

Setting up a new computer

Prevention is the best medicine when it comes to avoiding illness in ourselves. Prevention in the computer world is no different. And like a newborn baby, a newly purchased computer is subject to many terrible diseases and problems if not properly cared from the moment it is taken from its cardboard box. I follow these steps when setting up a new computer system for my clients, and recommend this methodology for all new...

1-click access to your favorite websites – V...

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...

Create Your OWN Personalized Newspaper Online R...

In this month’s group, we talked about and demonstrated how to set up a web page that can be personalized. I like to use a customized web page (portal) as my home page (first page that shows up when I start my browser). We looked at the Yahoo portal (My Yahoo) and the newer Google customized home page. Both services require that you register and setup a user name and password. Once you register, you can customize your...

Major browser updates from Microsoft & Mozill...

In the past month, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 (Vista and Windows 7 only) and Mozilla released Firefox 4. Both browsers ratcheted up the speed and rendering of web pages, but both still contain some bugs that you don’t want to deal with yet. As with all major upgrades to any program, I always recommend sitting out on the hoopla for a couple of months or so. This seems to be very applicable to these two...

Print only what you want – Multi-tip

How many times do you curse at your printer when you print a joke from email or some web page information and get two or more extra sheets of paper with useless information? Follow this tip and experience printing bliss from email or Internet and your word processor too! On the web, Select the text (by clicking and dragging with your mouse) that you would like to print Click File and Print from the menus (don’t click...

7 ways to become a more efficient web user –...

This is a reintroduction and retitling of a previous video/tip because of a copyright infringement complaint fromFranklin 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...

Become a web surfing pro!

At this month’s computer user group meeting, I used many of the articles, tips and videos I have written over the years to highlight how any computer user can start making quicker and better use of the Internet. Before I delve into specifics on this topic, watching and reading this tip title 7 ways to become a better web surfer, will yield you the greatest benefit if you read nothing else on this page. Do it! Now! First...

Firefox 3.0 Bookmark & History Search –...

This is a re-release of an almost 2 year old tip that you probably missed…it will save you boat loads of time!!! Firefox 3.0 was released last week after a long development period. The Mozilla folks put together an extremely good package and made genuine improvements in speed and features…a rare accomplishment in today’s software arena where programs get larger and less usable. The feature I use the most, so...

How to use tearable tabs in your browser – V...

This is a quick tip on using an extra feature of tabbed browsing. What’s tabbed browsing? If you aren’t using tabbed browsing yet, you need to start…today! Click here to get started and learn how to put this powerful feature of all modern browsers to work for you. Today’s intermediate tabbed browsing tip only works in Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera. Microsoft has not implemented it yet in Internet...

5 Simple Rules to avoid SCD (Slow Computer Disease...

I’ve written about this before, but it bares repeating on occasion for new visitors to the site and long time visitors who haven’t learned yet. The advice is simple: Do not download free screensavers, wallpaper, email programs (Incredimail, etc), or games from the Internet. Unless you are WELL versed in the origin of these items, they can easily destroy your computer’s ability to compute. “Slow...

Troubleshooting Your High Speed Internet Connectio...

This tip needs to come back to the front page again. I’ve helped many more people the last few weeks with this issue. Please print it and hang it by your computer…and send it your friends as well. I posted this tip many moons ago, but wanted to bring it back to the front page because we have so many new high speed Internet users. Click the Printer Friendly option at the bottom of this tip, print it out and post it...

Set Firefox to recognize web mail for mailto links...

If you use a web based email system like Gmail, HotMail, or Yahoo email or any derivative of these, you more than likely run into occasions where you want to email someone from a web site. However, when you click the link (known as a mailto link), you get presented with an email system you never heard of or used asking you to enter your email particulars to send the email. Most folks usually just snarl and forget about...

Email of the Week – 016

QUESTION Name:  Cathy From:   Walworth, WI. OS:      Windows XP ———————- I use Firefox and lately whether I have one or twenty tabs open all of a sudden it crashes and I have to re-open and restore tabs.  This happens 3-4 times a night. I have CA Security and Spy Bot. Thank you, Cathy ANSWER Thanks for writing and great question. Two ways to troubleshoot your problem. First,...

Beware of fake security software

I write a similar article every few weeks not because I’m not creative, but because too many people aren’t listening yet. These past few weeks have been awful for folks getting fake security software on their computers. It often times gets on a computer as a result of other things you are trying to download or access including, but not limited to: Free screensavers Free wallpaper Free games Free security software...