Tweak | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: tweak

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 the Continue reading →

System Engineer fed up with Windows vulnerabilities

Interesting article from a ZDNet author, Christopher Dawson, who also works full-time as a school district computer engineer. Despite locking down Windows computers with security software, tweaking firewalls, and making sure all Windows updates are up to snuff, threats still sneak into their computers. I understand the frustration he exhibits in the article regarding the time and effort spent fighting these threats…especially knowing how much more trouble free a Linux computer or Apple computer can be. Worth the read:

Give me one good reason not to just move them all to Linux | Education IT | ZDNet.com.

General Computer Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 4 Comments
3
Sep 09

9 Tweaks I perform for a new client’s computer

photo credit: Mooganic

When I meet a client’s computer for the first time, I go through a little routine to check for problems, improve performance, and speed up boot times. You can do it to your own computer too.

Use Task Manager to see how many processes are running and determine how much tweaking I have to do to startup.
Use msconfig to streamline the startup process
Install CCleaner to cleanup temporary files
Check on the amount of RAM in the computer. If less than 1 GB for XP or less than 2 GB for Vista, I recommend an upgrade.
Pull up Crucial.com and run the memory scanner to determine what type of RAM and how much RAM can be added. Print out the results and add Crucial’s phone number.
Talk about Continue reading →

Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
25
Aug 08

Google News Alerts

Google Alerts form Would you like to get targeted news/web searches delivered to your email? Google Alerts can do that for you. Google Alerts allow you to get automated, customized news and web searches delivered to your email daily, weekly, or as breaking news alerts based on the criteria you provide. The service can be used without a Google account, but if you start using the service more, and you will, having an account will allow you to manage and tweak your alerts easier. If you already use Google for a customized home page, email, Picasa account, Blogger account, or any of the other Google services, you can use that same account information to use and manage Google Alerts.

In order to really grasp how beneficial Google Alerts can be, you need to try it out for yourself. There are no limits to how many alerts you can create. Here’s how:

Click here to visit the Google Alerts page
Type a search term or terms in the first box. Remember to spell your terms correctly and describe your search completely so your alerts are more accurate
In the Type box, click and choose whether you want to get alert items from news stories only, blogs, videos, web in general (non-news), discussion groups, or comprehensive (which covers it all).
Choose how often you want the emails in the third box. Your choices are daily, weekly, or as the news happens.
Lastly, fill in your email and click the Create Alert button

Within a few hours, you will start to receive your email alerts. The email will be from Google Alerts with the subject Google Alert – Your Search Terms. The email will contain a list of the matches it found with the link to the story and where it is from and the first two lines of the story itself. You can delete or edit an alert at any time by going back to the Google Alerts web page and clicking the Manage your alerts link.

Riding Shotgun with Adam — 2 Comments
9
Jun 08

Defrag, scan disk, and deleting cookies don’t do much

In the computer world, there are hot rodders – people who will tweak their computers to get every last bit of horse power out of their systems.

Just as with automobiles, techniques used by hot rodders were once necessary in the early days when horse power was hard to come by.

Today, most computers come with all the horsepower most people need. Important tasks like defragmenting the hard drive, running scan disk and deleting cookies no longer do anything spectacular to the performance of the average computer.

Cookies are harmless – even the shady ones. Defragging does little on a 250 gig hard drive and scandisk is take care of by utility features in Windows that run every time you boot up or shut down.

If you have had your computer for six years and it has been used extensively for editing photos, listening to music and playing games, you may need to clean up that 10 percent fragmentation on your hard drive so that you can increase the performance by 3 percent.

If that sounds like too much work for too little performance increase, behold, my point.

Anyone who tries to tell you that such procedures are necessary and helpful either is trying to sell a utility program or is offering advice based on information they gathered in 1999.

Riding Shotgun with Rick / Windows Tips — 2 Comments
21
Mar 08

Vista Service Pack 1 – Don’t do it….yet

Microsoft released the first service pack (major upgrade) to the barely one year old Vista this week. In fact, the Service Pack has been in the works almost since Vista was released last year. You will see and read it being referred to as Vista SP1.

Microsoft missed the mark so badly with Vista that the company had to immediately go back to work in trying to improve an already mediocre release.

Should you upgrade to SP1?

No! At least don’t upgrade for the next month or two. After just a few days since release, there are already widespread reports of crashed computers, bigger problems with compatibility and slower performance with this upgrade. Don’t be a guinea pig with your computer, wait it out until it matures a bit.

What does SP1 include?

The 40+ security and other updates released since February 2007
Speed improvements
Security improvements
Mostly under-the-hood tweaks that we won’t see

Can I still get Windows XP?

Yes, but only until June 30 of this year. If you are thinking of a new computer or want to put XP on your new, slow Vista machine, do it before July. Since the first day of Vista’s release, many online efforts started to encourage Microsoft to continue allowing the sell of Windows XP. The largest one, that you can be a part of, comes from InfoWorld.com. They already have over 100,000 netizens who have signed their petition to Microsoft to Save XP.

Do I have other options besides Windows?

Yes, you do.

The opportunity to think about a Macintosh computer has never been more right than now. Although the cost is a little higher up front, you will make up for it in savings by not having to invest in costly security software or repairs because of security problems.
Also, you could stay with Windows XP.
Or, if you really want a newer operating system, the Linux operating system and its derivatives like Ubuntu get stronger every day and make a lot of sense for many computer users. Like Macintosh computers, they are not plagued with the security problems a Windows machine has AND you can use your existing computer instead of buy a new one.

Summary

DO NOT UPGRADE TO VISTA SP1 FOR AT LEAST 2 MONTHS.
You do have great alternative options in Macintosh or Linux.

DP & the Internet / Riding Shotgun with Adam — No Comments
23
Jan 08

Online Photo Editors

Basic photo editing no longer takes special software. You can now do some wonderful things with photos from any computer on almost any browser from anywhere in the world. Online photo editors allow you to edit photos simply by going to a special website.

Once fully loaded, these sites let you resize, adjust brightness and contrast, tweak color and even work with layers. While none of these editors are as robust as Photoshop Elements, they are great for doing basic adjustments especially when working on a computer that is not your own.

Splashup – an excellent photo editor that looks a lot like Photoshop Elements or Corel Paint Shop Pro. It is lacking in any real advanced features, but what it does have it does well. This is the best online editor for people who are used to working with commercial image editing software.

Picnik – an extremely simple image editor that is setup very well for people who are new to image editing. Picnik doesn’t do anything very fancy, but it loads fast and is great for quick tasks like making an image ligher or cropping a photo.

FotoFlexer – touted as the world’s most advanced photo editor, this service appears to live up to its name. FotoFlexer offers the usual basic fixes but then adds on a dozen or more special effects that are likely not offered by any other single online editor. The Interface of FotoFlexer is also broken up into easy categories so finding the right tool is fairly simple given how complex the site is.

Google search for online editing – I found the above site and many more by searching for “online photo editor” in Google.

You can use any of these programs without setting up an account, but to get all of the features offered including online storage of works in progress. Setting up an account is simple for each of the reviewed programs. Typically all you need is a user name, password, email address and a secret question.

Windows Tips — No Comments
27
Sep 07

Give Windows Vista a needed boost – Video Tip

Windows Vista is going away or improving so I will do my best to help Vista users make the best of a marginal situation. Lack of speed and responsiveness remains one of the biggest detriments to Vista.

I believe that one visiblible flaw with Vista’s speed is the over abundance of visual affects that require a great deal of resources. Disabling these unnecesary and sometimes irritating features will yield a little extra speed from Vista. Here’s how:

1. Click the Windows Orb (old Start button)
2. Type: SystemPropertiesPerformance (no spaces…type it as shown
3. Press Enter on your keyboard
4. Uncheck the features and affects you don’t need
5. Click Apply and OK

Watch the short video below to learn how to put this Vista tweak into practice:

General Computer Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 1 Comment
21
Sep 07

3 Reasons NOT to use Registry Cleaners

I know that downloading can be fun and pop-ups can be enticing. But when it comes to most system utilities (programs supposedly designed to help your computer), just say “NO!” One of the worst add-on utilities you can get is the so-called “registry cleaner”. First, let me try to define the registry. Starting with Windows 95 and all versions of Windows since then, Microsoft has employed a large and complex database that tracks all hardware, software, user settings, drivers, and more for our computer. This “database” of information controls everything we do with our computers from the installation of software, customization of the desktop and more importantly how all the programs we use interact with each other and with Windows.

If that sounds imposing already, imagine that any computer user (usually technicians only) can navigate this labyrinth of information and make adjustments or tweaks or hacks to the registry. One wrong move in the registry and your computer can be rendered useless. Thus my “3 Reasons NOT to use Registry Cleaners”:

Many of the “free” Registry Cleaners found online contain spyware and can slow your computer down to a crawl.
Registry Cleaners are designed to look for dead wood or expired entries and then delete those entries.As I mentioned already, one wrong move in the registry can crash your computer. Do you trust a computer program to make all the right moves?
Problems caused from registry damage caused by these ridiculous utilities can cost you hundreds of dollars in repair bills and/or lost data.

The best way to keep your registry clean is to first and foremost not install extraneous software that you don’t or won’t use. When you do try a program and find that you don’t like it, use the Add/Remove program utility in the Control Panel to remove the program. Using Add/Remove gives your computer the best chance of erasing the registry changes that the program made.

DP Hardware — No Comments
28
Aug 07

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scanning

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scanning*

*but weren’t sure who to ask.

Every scanner works a little differently, but these terms and tips should help you through the process.

TERMS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Image Editor – This is any program that allows you to manipulate an image. Some titles include Adobe Photoshop and Elements, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft PictureIt, and MGI Photosuite.

Scanner Driver – This is the software that allows your scanner to operate. Some scanners such as Visioneer and HP come with bundled software that tries to do too much, all you really need is your scanner driver and preferred image editor.

Import, Aquire, Get Photo – Depending on the Image Editor that you use, the name for this function will vary. This function allows you to scan you image directly into the image editor vs. using the proprietary software that came with your scanner, i.e. Visioneer Paperport.

Prescan or Preview – This function, again, depends on the software that your scanner uses. Clicking on this option allows your scanner to do a quick scan of what is laying on the scanner. This is done prior to the actual scan.

Scan – This is the final step in scanning an image. After you have drawn a box around the subject that you want to scan. If you scanned directly into your image editor, the image will immediately appear in the desired program, no dragging and dropping necessary.

TIPS:

1. Dust off your scanner – use canned air.

2. Scan at a high resolution if you plan to manipulate the image.

3. Don’t let the scanner do all the work. Save tweaking for the image editor

4. 72 dpi for email, 300 dpi for printing, 600+ dpi for manipulating.

5. Don’t forget to close your scanner driver after you have scanned the image.

SHOPPING FOR A NEW SCANNER

1. 600×1200 minimum
(most available today are at least 2400)

2. Ignore the "Gimmick Buttons" – I don’t mean don’t buy a scanner WITH them, just don’t buy a scanner FOR them.

3. Epson scanners generally provide the best results for scanning transparencies.

4. More expensive scanners often come with more software and may be more durable, but not necessarily better image quality.

THE BASIC SCANNING PROCESS

1. Open your image editor or other photo program.

2. Select the Acquire, Import, Scan or other option that opens your scanner driver.

3. Once your scanner software opens, make sure the resolution is set to at least 300dpi.

4. Click on the preview or prescan button.

5. The image will show up, but it has not officially scanned yet.

6. Draw a box around the area you want to scan by putting the mouse arrow in one corner of the image – holding down the mouse button – and dragging diagonally to the opposite corner.

7. Once you are happy with the selected area, click SCAN.

8. Close your scanner software and the image will be available to save and/or tweak in your image editor opened in step 1.

Links from this month’s meeting

Scanning Tips and Tricks