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...

Firefox reaches 1 billion downloads

After the great Internet Explorer (IE) vs. Netscape browser wars of the 90s, it didn’t appear that Internet Explorer would ever be challenged again…thus Microsoft’s complacency with updating IE. Then just 4+ years ago, Mozilla Firefox burst onto the scene with a small, fast, and safe browser that caught fire quickly. As spyware and other malware all but crippled IE users, Firefox became stronger and stronger...

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 released – Get it!

Mozilla released version 3.5 of their  browser, Firefox, less than two weeks ago. I jumped on the update the day  it came out and have had zero problems. You already know that I recommend everyone use an alternative to Internet Explorer for daily browsing. If you aren’t using an alternative browser yet, then now is the time to jump in and start using something other than Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox 3.5 shored...

Email of the Week – 006

QUESTION Name: Kathy From: Grand Junction OS: Windows XP ———————- When I go into different web sites I get this message: ERROR A runtime error has occurred? Line 30 ERROR: Object required Yes No This occurs quite frequently can you tell me why and what I can do about it? ANSWER This error is usually due to some programming and setting problems in Internet Explorer. You can...

Another plea for you to use Mozilla Firefox

Over the past six months, the spyware problems infiltrating both Windows XP and Vista has become almost mythical. Spyware is the junk that gets into your computer and slows it down, prevents antivirus software from doing its job, halts Windows updates, can disable your CDROM and/or USB drives, and much more. The vast majority of it turns out to be self-induced. By self-induced, I mean that the user willingly downloaded ring...

The spell checker in Firefox works everywhere!

  If you are a Mozilla Firefox user, and you should be, you may be overlooking one of its greatest features…the built-in spell checker. It works on any web page, in any text box you need to enter text. Look for any words that have a red, squiggly line underneath them for misspelled words. To correct the word, RIGHT click one time on the underlined word, then click the proper spelling from the list of suggestions....

Remember the tabs!

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...

Windows 7 – First Impressions

I just finished installing the Windows 7 Beta version released by Microsoft on Friday. I installed it on my Toshiba Intel dual-core processor with 4 GB of RAM. It was running Windows Vista which took more than 4 minutes to fully boot (I consider the boot up process to be finished when the hard drive stops spinning and I don’t have to compete with a still booting computer to do what I want to do), and running any...

Thwarted by online poker

Today marked my second Linux/Ubuntu casualty in almost 2 dozen attempts. As I’ve learned more about Ubuntu the past couple of years, I carefully selected clients who would have little problems dealing with a non-Microsoft operating system. You may have read my take on Ubuntu usage for the average computer user before, but here it is again to setup the rest of the story: I believe that any computer users who uses only...

Switch TODAY!

On my way out the door today, I came across this article outlining one of the largest security breaches yet with Internet Explorer. I have been recommending for years that you switch to Mozilla Firefox. Today, I’m taking a harder line and recommending that you should never use Internet Explorer except in the extremely rare instance where a site truly requires Internet Explorer (IE) to run properly. For your safety and...

Pandora Internet Radio – Video Tip

Pandora.com qualifies for yet another Web 2.0 application. Pandora started as a project to find the similarities in music and why we like certain music and why we don’t. The Pandora folks eventually made all their study of music into an amazingly customizable and accurate music service. To sign up is free although I recommend paying for the service if you use it a lot. Once you sign up, you start by building your own...

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 0...

Questions about converting to Firefox, malfunctioning keyboards, WordPress consulting, Norton 360 problems, video editing, the Magic Jack phone, and more are brought to you by Dixie, Kitty, Jill, Anne, Diane, Elaine, Amber, Norma, Rich and Mike! Have a...