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Early thoughts on Windows 7

Noisy thoughts in Monsterberg
photo credit: Greenmonster

Although I’ve been testing, using and writing about Windows 7 since last year, it has only been on the market 2 weeks. In those two weeks, I have setup 8 or 10 new machines already.

The setup is much faster than Vista, but I’m already getting that same ‘ol, same ‘ol feeling about it as I did with Windows Vista and Office 2007. I don’t doubt that Microsoft went back to the drawing board and tweaked and improved Windows, but overall it really is just Vista, done correctly. Plus the machines it is being released on are monsters: dual and quad core processors, 4, 6, and 8 GB of RAM and fast, capable video processors as well.

I really think the improvements in usability will be completely lost by the majority of average computer users. Pinning programs to the taskbar, jump lists, using the integrated search, file libraries, Home Groups, shaking and pushing Windows to screen edges will Read More »Early thoughts on Windows 7

Print Preview

Sometimes the most helpful computer utilities elude us and stay hidden for years. One such utility that I find very helpful (and have taken for granted) is the Print Preview function found in almost any program that allows printing.

Because Windows and Macintosh made the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment available to the masses, what we see on our screens is pretty close to what we see on our print outs. However, if you need to tweak margins, find the extra line that is creating an extra page, or determine whether a document (like a spreadsheet) will look better in Landscape or Portrait mode, there is no substitute for theRead More »Print Preview

Adding RAM to increase computer speed – Video Tip

RAM is the temporary memory that the computer uses to give us the feeling of programs opening and running with some pep. It’s like giving your computer a larger desk to work from so it can spread out and find things more efficiently. RAM also allows us to open multiple computer programs at the same time with less impact on the speed of the computer.

256 megabytes used to be a lot of RAM. Today, I’m recommending users have at least

Email of the Week – 007 – Why choose a Mac?

iMac and iBook, MacBook
photo credit: QuattroVageena

Name:  Richard Doran

From:  Battlement Mesa, CO

OS: Windows XP

———————-

I have a friend who is seriously considering a switch from her Dell PC to a Mac. On a couple of  occasions you have presented some really excellent “talking points” for people who should consider using a Mac. These deal mainly with their own personal computer usage, as I recall. I pulled up all Mac reference on your website and even “googled ” – but found
nothing that really covered the subject like you did.
A review of of your comments would be appreciated and this information could be a helpful useful addition to your web site!
Now I must wait to see if I get embarrassed that the info is already posted, as you so often prove.
———————-
ANSWER

Great question Richard. And I do Read More »Email of the Week – 007 – Why choose a Mac?

2 laptop suggestions for college students

Hats Off
photo credit: jarnott

Millions of high schoolers will be graduating soon and will be leaving for their respective campuses (campii?) at the end of the summer. These students will more than likely go to college with a computer…probably a laptop. I would like to suggest two possible laptops ideas for these students.

Both of my ideas involve good systems that will allow college kids to word process, chat, email, listen to music, watch DVD’s, browse the web wirelessly(for school research of course), create presentations, spreadsheets, download and edit photos and much more. Neither involve Windows and thus don’t require a degree in computer security and maintenance. One of the computers costs between $1200-1800 and the other costs less than $700.

My recommendations stem from first hand accounts from parents whose college kids call home frequently with tales of woe about a slow, non-functioning new computer. Students need to have their computers operational, and running around to the campus IT people or dropping the computer at a fix-it shop for expensive repairs. These two recommendations will keep calls home for repair money, tales of woe, and computer down time to a bare minimum.Read More »2 laptop suggestions for college students

Have your Mac start a program when you start the computer

If you are a Mac user and want a program to start automatically, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Apple from the upper left hand corner
  2. Click System Preferences
  3. Click Accounts in the System section
  4. Click your user name
  5. Click the Login Items button.
  6. Click the “Add (+)” button underneath the listed items
  7. Find the program you want to automatically start at bootup, and double-click it
  8. Close all your open windows

Customizing your iPhone home screen – Video Tip

This is a pretty specific tip for a relatively new device, but with WalMart now carrying iPhones more and more people will want and need to learn how to take advantage of their investment. The iPhone is a wonderful little tool…IF you learn how to use it and make it work for you.

One of the first things you can do with any piece of technology is customize it to fit your needs. With the iPhone, learning to customize the interface makes the unit more usable for you. This week, I show iPhone users how to customize the location of their icons on the iPhone launch screen or home screen.

  1. Touch and hold your finger on any icon
  2. When the icons start to jiggle, take your finger off the icon.
  3. Now you can drag any icon to any position by touching and dragging it to a new location or even a new screen by dragging it to the left or right edge of the screen.
  4. You can also drag the default icons off the toolbar at the bottom and drag the ones you use most often to the toolbar
  5. When you are finished moving your icons to positions that work best for you, push the button at the bottom of your iPhone.

As always, these tips make more sense by watching the video! And even if you aren’t an iPhone user, I think you will find it interesting to see the kind of tech that can be found in a phone today.

Using the Macintosh Dashboard – Video Tip

This week’s tip is for those of you who have taken my advice and moved over to the Macintosh world. The Mac has a nice feature that remains unused for many new Mac users. It’s called the Dashboard. The Mac Dashboard consists of literally hundreds of helpful or just plain fun, customizable widgets that can be instantly viewed or instantly pushed out of view. Mac computers ship with a couple of dozen widgets ranging from calculators, conversion programs, translation programs, weather gadgets, post-it type notes, and much more.

If you don’t find any Dashboard widgets that work for you, I explain how you can search Apple’s vast library of downloadable widgets…most of which are free.

Watch my how-to video below to learn how to make the most of your Mac Dashboard!

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 024

Brought to you by Harlene, Kristina, Sage, Herb, Crystal, Marion, Mariane, Donna, Dona, Chris, Barbara, and Rosie this week’s edition includes some AVG questions and frustrations, Macintosh advice, Microsoft Office 2007 problems, and of course much more!