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...

What do you really do with your computer?

In my travels, it seems that most home computer users primarily use email. I would love to see 100-200 comments attached to this short article so you can tell me what you use your computer for from day-to-day. You don’t have to be statistically accurate or detailed, I’m just curious and this topic is too broad and detailed for a poll. Here’s how I use my main computer: Internet (web browsing, pay bills, web...

Acer Aspire One Netbook

Today, I had my first opportunity to get some hands-on time with Acer’s entry into the netbook craze, the Acer Aspire One. The young lady I helped bought a blue Aspire One on Black Friday for just over $300. Sporting a 120GB hard drive, an extremely nice 8.9″ screen, 1 GB of RAM, and Windows XP, this little unit was very impressive to look at and use. After some discussion with me, she decided that she...

Netbooks are NOT made for Windows XP or Vista

One year ago, ASUS started a fire storm of new computers that now go by the name of netbooks with the release of their EeePC.  I wrote about this subject just a few months ago, but with the holidays approaching and netbooks are high on gift giver’s radar screens so I want to explore netbooks a little more in depth. Netbooks make attractive gift giving ideas for a few reasons: They are inexpensive; usually cost...

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...

You can do what I do

I love learning. My goal is to learn something new every single day I open my eyes. Luckily, I learn multiple new ideas, techniques, or facts every single day. When it comes to my job troubleshooting computers, I believe anyone can do it if they follow the formula I use. You need to be able to be able to learn and learn quickly. Computers, software, peripherals and the infinite combinations of them change at a rapid pace....

Set up a home network – Part I

Home computer networks used to be just for geeks, there was no practical reason to setup a network at home because most people only had one system and the Internet was only accessible through a dial-up connection that couldn?t be shared. Today that has all changed. Computer networks are not only practical but they are also easy to setup and in many cases they are absolutely necessary. Over the next few weeks, we will...

Lazy computer users

Over the past few days, the tech news sites and blogs have carried a story centered on a quote from a NetBook (tiny laptop) manufacturer stating that the company receives 4X the returns of Linux based systems versus Windows systems. The more often I saw this headline and read the articles, the more irritated I became. Computers are still in their infancy compared to much of the technology we use today. Americans have had...

Is Skype quality getting worse?

Skype ranks as one of my all-time favorite web programs. For those who have never heard this name or weren’t sure what it is about, Skype allows you to make voice and or video calls from your computer to another Internet connected computer anywhere in the world for free. Skype also offers extremely low pricing for making computer to land line or cell phone calls as well. I use Skype to communicate with my brother in...

Your one stop troubleshooting spot

In the almost 14 years that I have devoted to helping computer users, I have discovered a few computing standards: Many computer problems can be solved by simply restarting the computer. In the event of a mouse, keyboard, monitor, sound, printer or Internet problem, always triple check your cables to make sure everything is plugged in securely. Much to the dismay of computer users, almost all problems were caused in...

Windows was unable to find a certificate to log yo...

I looked all over the Internet for a long time to find this answer. Once I discovered it, I decided to post it here on HMR so that everyone can have it. The problem arises in Windows XP while trying to connect to a secured network, often on a D-link router. While trying to connect a new computer wirelessly, an error comes up stating that “Windows was unable to find a certificate to log you onto the network (Network name...

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...

Dr.Pic Online Photo Editing and Batch Resizing

Earlier this week, I posted a story about Web 2.0. Just today, I found another Web 2.0 application that works extremely well. It’s called Dr.Pic and offers online basic photo editing and touch up in a fast and intuitive layout. In addition to the nice editing and touch-up tools offered by Dr. Pic, they offer a fantastic batch (multiple) image resizing utility. Like all Web 2.0 applications, a high speed Internet...