Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners » tweak

Print Preview

Rick — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:34:56 +0000

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 Print Preview command.

System Engineer fed up with Windows vulnerabilities

Rick — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:03:03 +0000

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 [...]

9 Tweaks I perform for a new client’s computer

Rick — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:32:31 +0000

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 [...]

Google News Alerts

Rick — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:37:33 +0000

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.

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

Rick — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:56:17 +0000

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.

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

Rick — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:24:49 +0000

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

Online Photo Editors

Rick — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:15:23 +0000

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.

Give Windows Vista a needed boost – Video Tip

Rick — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:52:20 +0000

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:

3 Reasons NOT to use Registry Cleaners

Rick — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:23:45 +0000

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.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scanning

Rick — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:55:57 +0000

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