Tweak | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: tweak

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 1 Comment
20
Aug 07

Mission Accomplished

As I wrote about on Friday, this was a busy work weekend for me. I think three of the computers I worked on offer an interesting comparison in operating systems.

One laptop was a brand new HP with 2 GB of RAM and Windows Vista, but the owner wanted me to install Windows XP and take off Windows Vista. He uses it primarily for traveling and downloading his digital photos while traveling and just didn’t like the lack of speed with Vista. The install of Windows XP went smoothly, but finding some of the XP drivers for it took quite a bit of looking around. All is running well now, and the with 2GB of RAM and a dual-core processor, the little laptop is very fast. Bootup time is under 70 seconds.

The next laptop was another Vista machine with 1 GB of RAM that a client bought for her mom who is a first time computer user and is 83 years old I believe. She will take the laptop with her to Connecticut next week. I took off all the pre-installed junk and installed AVG anti-virus and configured a Gmail account to work with Windows Mail (Vista’s version of Outlook Express). Because her mom has some sight problems, I bumped up the text size and DPI setting to make it easier to work with for her. Also, I disabled all of Vista’s fancy eye candy and effects. Despite all these tweaks, the computer still takes more than three minutes to fully boot up. And unless you experience it, I can’t adequately describe how slow Vista feels and operates.

On Friday, I described a third computer that I was working on for a customer who had a hard drive crash and HP’s recovery disks wouldn’t work. After talking with her about options, she decided to let me install Ubuntu Linux on the computer. I used the current 7.04 version and installed in under twenty-five minutes! This computer is probably four to five years old and has only 256mb of RAM, but still is MORE than powerful enough for Ubuntu. I setup her desktop to resemble Windows so she could make the transition a little easier. She is an AOL user so she will have to access that via AOL’s web interface, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It will be fun to see how she handles the transition to Ubuntu, and I will keep all of you informed of her progress.

The graphic I placed in this article is the final desktop configuration of her Ubuntu desktop, click on it to get a larger view.

By the way, the Ubuntu computer (the oldest of these three), boots up in under sixty seconds!

Better Internet Audio & Video for Slow Internet Connections – Video Tip

More and more, the Internet is all about streaming video and audio. Streaming means that the web site slowly feeds the audio or video content to your computer. With slow Internet connections (dial-up and basic DSL), the video might be choppy and audio may stutter. Unfortunately, there is no sure fire way to combat this with slower connections, but you can take steps to improve the performance of Internet audio and video.

All Internet media players (Windows Media Player, QuickTime, Real Player, Winamp, etc) try to detect your Internet speed and then stream (feed) you the content at an appropriate rate. Unfortunately, the players tend to be a little too aggressive in feeding the video/audio and the result is poor performance and less than an enjoyable multimedia experience.

One technique that seems to work pretty well is to change the player’s settings from automatically detecting your connection speed to setting it manually. My recommendation is to set the streaming speed of a player to at least one level BELOW what your actual speed is. For any dial-up connection, do not set the streaming speed to higher than 28.8kbps. For basic DSL (typically 256kbps), set the speed at 128kbps. Doing this “tricks” the player into feeding the content in more digestable bits resulting in a little smoother audio or video experience.

Watch my tip below on exactly how this is accomplished and for an extra tweak or two to help maximize your multimedia enjoyment with any speed Internet connection.

Riding Shotgun with Adam — 4 Comments
31
Jul 07

Did you miss us last night?

Many thanks for everyone who attempted to tune in last night. It was a great trial run and we have most of the kinks worked out. We didn’t actually get the live video and chat up until around 10:45pm. Once everything was up and running it was pretty lively. By the time we got off at almost midnight we were getting computer questions right and left.

We are very excited to get this going. One thing we can promise is that the new show isn’t just going to be an Internet version of our radio show. Last night we had questions from all areas of technology. We discussed HDTV, wireless networks and Internet security with people who had never heard the show.

One visitor even told us that they have been using Vista since its release and it had never locked up. Come to find out they were running beast of a system with 650 gigs of hard drive space and 4 gigs of RAM. Imagine how fast XP or Ubuntu would work on a system like that. They reported that Vista ran great once they tweaked the settings a little.

Tune in next Thursday night. Our target time is 9:30pm MST but we may just jump on a little earlier while we are doing show prep. We are very excited about the direction this show is taking and we hope you enjoy it too.

OnAir Solutions — 2 Comments
23
Jun 07

Missing Control Panel icons

Kathy has some missing icons in her Control Panel of Windows Me. I would suggest downloading Microsoft's Tweak UI and then under the Control Panel section, check the "Rebuild Icons" and Repair button. Here is the link for the Tweak UI program for Windows Me:

Download TweakUI

Windows Tips — 9 Comments
21
Apr 07

The powerful and easy to use msconfig – Video Tip

Msconfig (a.k.a. Microsoft Configuration Utility) allows us to tweak a little extra speed from our boot ups and increase the available memory to our systems. You can find this utility by clicking on Start –> Programs –> Accessories –> System Tooks –> System Information. Once there, click Tools from the menus and then Configuration Utility. However, the fastest way to get to it is to:

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Run
3. Type: msconfig
4. Press Enter on your keyboard.

Once inside the configuration utility, click the Startup tab. This will list a number of programs that start up automatically upon boot up. You can simply uncheck the ones you don’t want to start automatically. Some ideas to uncheck are duplicate entries (uncheck one), AOL system tray, Real Player, Greetings workshop reminders (unless you really use them), and Quicken bill minder (unless you use it) are among a few. Leave anything checked that you aren’t sure about including Scan registry, System tray and your anti-virus programs.

This web site is a nice searchable list of almost all possible startup items and what they are associated with in case you are at a loss of what some of the entries are.

msconfig post boot screen

When you finish unchecking items you don’t want to star, click OK and your system will need to reboot. When Windows restarts, a screen will appear telling you about the changes you just made with MSCONFIG. Click the check box on the screen and click OK as illustrated in the picture.

Watch our short video tutorial on how this process works by clicking the Play button below.

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
6
Apr 07

My confession

One of my client's this week caught me in the act…of searching my own web site. They then responded by saying, "Oh, you just found that on your web site?, I didn't know you could do that?"

I said, "Sure. Our web site is a gold mine of information for most everyday computer questions or problems."

More and more, we respond to questions on our radio show by referring the caller to our web site. When we don't have an answer on the site, we find the answer, then post it to the web site. On any given week, we post 8-14 new items on the site…usually relevant to every day computer users.

The second part of my confession is that I use Google a ton to help sleuth out problems on the show and in my business. The more I do it, the better I get it at it. Searching for computer answers can be exasperating if you aren't quite sure how to search. I always start out by typing in the exact error message that I am receiving or exactly what it is I'm trying to do, then tweak the search terms from there. I used to think that I could teach someone else how to use the web to troubleshoot their own computer problems. IF the search yields some good information, the user would then have to decide if the methodology would work for their particular situation. and then determine how to best go about attacking the problem via the instructions.

That's where the expertise comes in handy again. Often, these answers are written in 'geek speak' or not thoroughly written because the writer assumes that the reader has a certain skill level. That's why, if we think it will be a skill that many computer users would like to know or might need to know in the future, we tweak the instructions, write it out in step-by-step format and post it here at HelpMeRick.com. Or, if the original answer we found is written well, we link directly to it.

Bottom line in my confession is this: 1) Use our web site first and foremost when you have a problem you need to solve. 2) If you don't feel comfortable looking for the information, send your kid or neighbor or neighbor's kid to our site to find the answer for you, 3) My brain is unable to hold every speck of computer knowledge I've acquired, but I can find it quickly on our site or using Google, and 4) Yes, anyone can use Google to try and find a solution to a problem, but how long will it take and will they understand it when they find it?

Links — No Comments
3
Mar 07

DSL Reports

DSL Reports is a great web site for testing your Internet speed and tweaking Windows settings to take better advantage of your high speed connection.

Hardware Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 16 Comments
7
Feb 07

Delete only one entry from Internet Explorer Address Bar (history)- Video Tip

The address bar in Internet Explorer (or any web browser) allows you to type in known web sites and visit them quickly. Sometimes you might want to clean out individual entries from the address bar or history, but this isn't possible in Internet Explorer unless you edit the registry. Watch the video below to learn how to perform this delicate Windows tweak. The video has a surprise ending to make this process a whole lot easier!

Here are the registry steps for Internet Explorer to delete an individual entry from the address bar:

Close any open windows or programs
Click Start
Click Run
Type: regedit
WARNING: Registry editing is for experienced computer users only. Mistakes made in the registry can render your computer and Windows useless. Proceed at your own risk.
Click the "+" sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Click the "+" sign next to Software
Click the "+" sign next to Microsoft
Click the "+" sign next to Internet Explorer
Click TypedURLs
Delete all the URLx (e.g. URL1, URL2 and so on) that you do NOT want to see in the address bar
Close the registry editor.