Utilities | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: utilities

Changing email addresses – It’s not that difficult

photo credit: TheeErin

AOL made millions of dollars for years because computer users are afraid to change their email addresses. All week long, I hear, “Oh, it’s too hard to change email addresses now.” Or, “It will take forever to change my email address with everyone.”

Come on folks…we’re using computers! You don’t have to fill out a change of address form and march it down to the postal office. You don’t have to send out a post card to every person you know. You don’t have to fill out a change of address for all your bills and utilities.

Changing email addresses is actually pretty painless and can be cathartic as well. In fact, think of it as going into the digital identity protection program. Here’s how to make it a smooth transition Continue reading →

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 →

General Computer Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick / Windows Tips — 4 Comments
14
Jan 09

Use CCleaner Monthly

CCleaner screen If you are a Microsoft Windows user, of any flavor, I recommend that you download and use the free CCleaner utility once per month. Our computers create thousands of small files that we never see in order to perform the computing tasks we ask of them. Visiting web sites also creates thousands of files including the oft misunderstood cookies. All these files are called temporary files and are completely expendable. Over the course of time, these small temporary files can build up to such a significant amount that they can drag down the performance of even the fastest system.

CCleaner offers a quick, easy and thorough tool to clean all these files in a single click. After downloading and installing the product (I un-click the option to add the Yahoo toolbar during the install), you will have a CCleaner icon on your desktop like the one pictured (large red C with a blue whisk broom). Double-click it, and click the Run Cleaner button. In just a few minutes, the cleaning will finish and present you with a report detailing what was deleted and how much space was recovered.

IF you don’t want your web history or cookies or recycle bin to be automatically cleaned (deleted), you can uncheck the appropriate box before clicking the Run Cleaner button.

General Computer Tips / Hardware Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
4
Dec 08

Does that computer have enough hard drive space?

hard drive properties While counseling a customer on buying a new computer recently, the customer asked if a 500 gigabyte drive was ok compared to another a computer that had a 640 GB hard drive. Other than hard drive capacity, the machines were pretty equal. Unless the person plans to store their 2000 album music collection, edit feature length movies, or are designing the next skyscraper for Dubai, I have them go through this simple exercise:

Double-click My Computer
RIGHT Click the Hard drive icon (usually designated as the C drive)
Click Properties

When the pie chart appears, I ask them to tell me what the total capacity of the drive is (in the woman’s case I was helping today, it was 20 GB), then I ask them to tell me how much of the drive is being used (the blue part of the chart and in this woman’s case it was 8 GB). Then I ask them how long they have used the computer and in her case it was 6 or 7 years.

The demonstration solidifies the answer for them and will for you too if you need to decide what kind of hard drive capacity is needed when buying a new computer.

Computer User Group / Hardware Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 10 Comments
25
Sep 08

Setting up a new computer

new computer box Prevention is the best medicine when it comes to avoiding illness in ourselves. Prevention in the computer world is no different. And like a newborn baby, a newly purchased computer is subject to many terrible diseases and problems if not properly cared from the moment it is taken from its cardboard box. I follow these steps when setting up a new computer system for my clients, and recommend this methodology for all new computer setups:

Before setting up the new computer, back up all of your data to CD’s, DVD’s, external hard drives, or flash drives for transfer to the new computer Make sure you get not only your obvious data like documents, pictures, and financial data, but also your address book, email settings, favorites, etc. Remember, you can backup data, but not programs.
Make note of your email settings and configuration (if you didn’t back them up).
Download a copy of a AVG Antivirus and have them on a CD or flash drive at the ready.
When setting up the new PC, DO NOT connect printers, scanners, cameras, and especially the Internet until later.
Once at the new desktop, the first place to head is the Control Panel and Add/Remove programs (Programs and Features in Vista). Remove all trial software that you don’t plan on purchasing (Quicken, Quickbooks, Office suites, etc). Also remove any <!–break–>Internet provider software that you will not use like AOL, Earthlink, NetZero, etc.
Now go back to Add/Remove programs and uninstall any trial security software that came with the machine.
If you uninstalled the pre-installed security software (recommended), install the AVG antivirus program you have at the ready.
Now, you can hook up your Internet connection. Once you have a connection established, update your anti-virus software immediately.
Setup your email program and accounts.
Install your peripherals (scanners, printers, etc) per your manufacturers instructions.
Install any programs that you want on the new system
Transfer your data from their backup locations.
Strongly consider downloading and using Mozilla Firefox as your primary browser.
Create your Recovery CD set found in your manufacturer’s options or utilities folder (if required).

Enjoy your properly setup and safe, new computer!

Riding Shotgun with Rick / Windows Tips — No Comments
5
May 08

Small and Free Utility Software Gems

Those of you who have kept up with me over the years know that I’m not a utility junkie. The fewer utilities and installed programs the better for me.

That being said, I admire and cherish great utilities that serve purposes I need. Some of my favorites over the years include Tech Smith’s Snag It screen capture tool and Camtasia which I use to create our video tips. I also am never without a desktop tape calculator. My current favorite is the Moffsoft Tape Calculator.

Tonight, however, I discovered a bevy of small, free Windows utilities that perform some admirable tasks like locking the keyboard or mouse quickly (to prevent kids or animals from accidentally punching keys), creating keyboard shortcuts, locking desktop icons, CD ejector, and many other helpful little desktop tools. Collectively, these programs fall under the moniker of 1 Hour Software by Skrommel. Go ahead, click the link and let me know what tools you like.

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.

OnAir Solutions — No Comments
3
Mar 07

IPCONFIG and NETSTAT Options

Ipconfig Switches

Switch	Effect
/all	Produces a detailed configuration report for all interfaces.
/flushdns	Removes all entries from the DNS name cache.
/registerdns	Refreshes all DHCP leases and reregisters DNS names
/displaydns	Displays the contents of the DNS resolver cache.
/release < adapter >	Releases the IP address for a specified interface.
/renew < adapter >	Renews the IP address for a specified interface.
/showclassid < adapter >	Displays all the DHCP class IDs allowed for the adapter specified.
/setclassid < adapter > < classID to set >	Changes the DHCP class ID for the adapter specified.
/?	Displays this list.

I will continue to look for Netstat switches.

To run either of these utilities, start by opening a Windows Prompt window by clicking Start –> Run and type: cmd in the box and press Enter on keyboard or click OK

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
1
Dec 06

A Fourth Utility?

Water, gas and/or electricity, and telephone service have been widely available for years and present in almost every household in America. In the past few years, I have noticed that households with Internet connections now panic almost as much with an Internet outage as they would with a power outage or water leak. The Internet has truly become the a 'fourth utility'.

We all use the Internet now as a communication medium and the ultimate reference device. When it slows down, act erratic, or fails, we tend to worry about it almost as much our other three utilities. You can keep your fourth utility humming along problem free by following the advice we have laid out for you on this site regarding Internet security and troubleshooting.

What do you think? If you were stuck on an island and could have water, electricity, telephone, or Internet which would you pick (assuming that you could use any of the above without the other)?

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 1 Comment
22
Nov 06

We need a new Internet Appliance

At one of the first, now defunct, Comdex computer shows that I attended in the late 90's, I attended a round table discussion on Internet Appliances. This was a huge buzz word at the time, but unfortunately it was ahead of its time. An Internet Appliance did only two things…browse the Internet and email. The picture I'm showing in this story was known as the Netpliance from a company called I-Opener. The idea was great, but at the time Internet connections were dial-up only and the Internet had not attained a true critical mass of users.

In today's world, we are more connected than ever and even our cell phones have faster Internet access than dial-up. Computer users rely on the Internet connection almost like a fourth utility (electricity, gas, and water are the other utilities I'm counting). In my daily travels to help you computer users, I see that a vast majority of computer users only use their machines for email and a little Internet. The next biggest group uses their computers for the same activities plus a little word processing and downloading their photos from a digital camera. Although computer prices have come down in price, they still provide to much complexity and wasted computer power for these tasks.

I think the time is ripe for someone (I wish I was an inventor) to come up with a new Internet Appliance. If someone can come up with a machine that has these features for under $200, I think a whole new niche can be filled:

Small footprint to attach to an existing TV (a la Web TV) with a USB Port for retrieving digital photos from a camera and to hook up a printer (or Blue Tooth capability)
Wireless keyboard and pointing device
High Speed connectivity

That's it. No hard drive. No CD or DVD burners. No countless wires dangling from the back of hulking black or beige box. The Internet has matured so much, that such a device would allow the user to store their photos online, create and store word processing, spreadsheets and other documents online, play games online, and duplicate almost any other common computer task online.

The time is right, the Internet is rich, and we don't do much else with our computers. Come on you inventors or capitol investors, bring back the Internet Appliance.