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...

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...

Where to buy a book manual for your computer

“Why didn’t my computer come with a manual?” One of the most common complaints we hear is about how new computers don’t come with manuals. I am here to explain why this is the case. The sad answer is that if the computer company came with a manual, it would weigh more than the computer. “But my old computers used to come with manuals…,” Is the next comment. Back in the old days...

Using your backups

This weekend, an emailer asked the question of how to use the backups that we describe on our site. An excellent question I’m sure others have had as well. Over the years, I laid out step-by-step methods for backing up your email address book, favorites/bookmarks, and even your email. To use these backups, simply use the “Import” function to bring them back into a new installation of a program or even a...

Using the “Middle Click” to make searc...

Every time I show a computer user how to use the tab feature of their browser (found in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opera, and Safari), their eyes light up and they can’t believe what I showed them is real. Today was another such day. I helped an extremely knowledgeable young lady with her computer, and somehow the conversation drifted into searching the Internet. She nearly fell off her exercise ball when I showed...

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a t...

Software upgrades can cost you much more than they help you. Very few computer users need to upgrade any software, except for daily updates for security software. Today, I helped a couple who became frustrated after updating from AOL 9.0 to 9.1. They relayed to me that they went ahead with the upgrade because of the promise that AOL would be easier and faster with the upgrade. After the upgrade, AOL changed their Internet...

Print just what you want…

I am resurrecting this great tip from my archives. This tip first appeared about four years ago on the show and then the web site. I wanted to share it again because of our new listeners and the extreme usefulness of the tip. Printing information from the web can sometimes be frustrating. A long web page yields reams of paper when you only wanted a couple of pages. Read on to learn how to print only the pages you...

Another parental reminder

We mention this tip as often as possible on our show, but I felt it was necessary to bring it to the attention of our web visitors again: Parents, please install and use only Mozilla Firefox for your web browser. Kids, especially teens, plus Internet browsing with Internet Explorer spells disaster. Too many Internet degenerates target their spyware and virus spreading programs at teens and teen related web sites. Also, teens...

The Top 10 Free Porn and Poker Web Sites

Let’s all face it. We don’t have to agree with it or even like it, but the porn and gaming (poker) industry push the boundaries of the Internet and sometimes that translates to a better Internet experience for all of us. From experience with my business, I can tell you that computer users who frequent free online gambling sites, porn sites, and free music downloading sites have the worst running computers....

You can change your Internet Home Page – Vid...

When you buy a new computer, the Internet browser comes pre-configured with a home page (first web site you see when you start your web browser). For PC’s, it is usually MSN. For Mac’s it is Apple.com. If you download Firefox (which everyone should be using), its default home page is a Firefox branded Google page. Sometimes your Internet provider’s web site takes over as your home page if you run one of...

Internet Explorer prints only HTML

Today I ran into a problem that I hadn’t seen before. A customer’s MSN and Internet Explorer browser (including MSN email and web mail) would only print the HTML coding of a web page or email. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the programming that is used to present web pages to us and the coding behind text color, bold, etc. in email. We had cleaned some spyware from this users computer earlier...

How to know if you have spyware

If the popups and sudden system slowdown aren’t sufficient indicators, here are two other ways to tell that you have spyware. 1. Tons of toolbars in Internet Explorer 2. More than 10 items in the system tray by the clock Special thanks to my client who unknowingly contributed material for this video which I recorded with my cell phone. ...

Internet Explorer 7 Zoom

For many computer users, viewing some web sites can be frustrating because text tends to be too small. Since many of you might be using Internet Explorer 7, take advantage of the improved zoom functuon in it. To access the zoom function: 1. Click Page from the menu in the upper right of the screen 2. Click Zoom from the menu 3. Choose a Zoom value from the options (I recommend trying the 125% first and then move up from...

Internet Explorer 7 Zoom

For many computer users, viewing some web sites can be frustrating because text tends to be too small. Since many of you might be using Internet Explorer 7, take advantage of the improved zoom functuon in it. To access the zoom function: 1. Click Page from the menu in the upper right of the screen 2. Click Zoom from the menu 3. Choose a Zoom value from the options (I recommend trying the 125% first and then move up from...

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...