Hold off on the Internet Explorer 8 upgrade

Are you really still using Internet Explorer after all these years of me promoting and talking up Firefox? If you are, Microsoft released IE 8 last week, and already people are running away from it because of compatibility and stability problems. Like always, hold off on these types of upgrades for at least 3 months and let others be the guienea pigs for Microsoft. You will get along just fine with IE 7 and better with...

7 Days with Windows 7 – Day 3

I went against my instincts today for your benefit and delved into Internet Explorer 8. IE 8 will be the default browser in Windows 7, although their are rumors that it will be possible to disable or even uninstall it. IE 8 is a step up from IE 7, albeit a very small step. It still loads pages slower than Google Chrome and Firefox. The features that allow you to customize IE 8 are sparse and implemented by very few vendors....

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...

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...

Searching within a Web page – Video Tip

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...

Backup Your Favorites (Bookmarks) – Video Ti...

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...

Firefox or Internet Explorer doesn’t display...

For some reason, I have seen this issue about six times in the past few weeks with Windows XP computers. The browser (both Firefox and/or Internet Explorer) symptoms include: Web sites don’t display all images Text seems distorted Backgrounds don’t display The solution to your browser not displaying the images or backgrounds properly is removing the high contrast setting in the Control Panel. Here’s...

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...

Solution for computer users who can’t print ...

Since I use Firefox exclusively for my browsing, I haven’t seen this problem yet, but today I ran into a computer that could print from anywhere but Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). Turns out that, in her case, the upgrade to AVG 8.0 caused the problem. A standard installation of AVG 8 installs a security toolbar in Firefox, if you use it, or Internet Explorer 7. The toolbar is meant to help users from clicking on potentially...

Adobe Reader 9 update – DON’T DO IT!

Adobe released version 9 of their PDF (Portable Document Format) Reader program. Once the king and almost sole PDF reader on the market, it, like so many other mainstream programs, has become bloated beyond recognition. This software bloat slows down the performance of even the fastest computers, and for this reason, I firmly stand against software bloat. I added Adobe Reader to my do not use list almost two years ago....

“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,...

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...