Long time followers/listeners/readers of mine know that I love goats. My family raised two pygmy goats from 6 weeks (bottle feeding) to now. Sadly, we lost our female goat a couple of years ago, but we still have our friendly old male goat. That being said, I naturally gravitated to this headline from Google’s blog today about goats doing their… Read More »Goats eat Google’s weeds
I tweeted the question yesterday on whether the computer operating system (OS) really matters any more. The response from the Twitter community was less than overwhelming so I want to pose the same question to you, the HelpMeRick.com community.
My contention is that more and more computer functions get done in a web browser. I rarely use any other computer program other than my browser these days. I don’t print much, I share my photos online, I compose spreadsheets and word processing documents online, I edit photos online, I manage my web site online, I store my important files online, and much more. And more applications are born every day that make the speed of my Internet connection more important than the speed of computer.
And the wonderful thing, to me, about performing all these functions online, is I can literally sit at anyRead More »Does the Operating System matter any more?
You know that I write about Web 2.0 (cloud computing) often. To me, working in your browser is easier, safer (for backup), and more consistent than using desktop applications. And since most of us use only the bare minimum of features for document creation, why spend $100s of dollars for name brand applications. Online applications offer full Microsoft Office compatibility… Read More »For Beginners: 3 Getting Started Guides for Google Docs
If you haven’t taken advantage of my tip on how to print just what you select from a web site/email or my tip on finding printer friendly versions of articles you want to print (which can be combined with the first tip), then you might want to take a look at the Print what you like web site linked below.… Read More »Save paper & ink – PrintWhatYouLike.com
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
Great questions this week from Thomas, Patrick, Roy, James, Mef, Mike, Rooman, Clarence, Sir Bil, and Yolande about browsing the Internet on a Nintendo DSi, deleting scanned images, working with Picasa collages, lost brotherly emails and more. Have a look and a listen!
If you use MSN email, HotMail, Gmail, AOL email, Yahoo email or other online email services, you can save a bunch of time and clicks when you select files for deletion. These past two weeks I have seen many people painstakingly click the selection box one at a time when cleaning their email folders. Instead, you can use the select… Read More »Save time and clicks when deleting mail online – Video Tip
I ran across this tool a few years ago, but more people have asked about it, so here you go. What this free tool does is analyze all those End User License Agreements (EULA) that we agree to blindly when we install new software or sign up for an online service. After downloading and installing this tool, you can use… Read More »EULAlyzer can help you stay safe
Microsoft recently started a set of online wizards that can cure common problems like a lost recycle bin, problems with Outlook or Outlook Express and many Windows woes as well. If you have a specific problem with an error, it might be a worthwhile trip over to the site to see if there is a Fix It available for you.… Read More »Microsoft Fix it Solution Center
I asked myself that very same question many times. Then I asked, “Would Twitter have any benefit for me?” My first answer was no way. Then I decided to try it, and now I’m hooked.
Twitter.com is a web based service that lets its users post a maximum of 140 character (that includes punctuation and spaces) messages. The messages can include links to web pages and links to pictures. Some people call this micro-blogging since the resulting web page is personalized and shows a chronology of the persons posts or tweets. Since Twitter is a relatively new service, there aren’t many rules other than the 140 character limit.
It seems that most people use it to post a quick sentence or two about what they are seeing at the moment, thinking at the moment, or a cool find like a good coffee shop or bbq place. And many others, use it to announce new articles on their web sites or a cool web sites they have found. Once you figure out a few people to follow (the term for getting updates from people you sign up to see their tweets).
For me, it is fulfilling a dream I had about Read More »What is Twitter (to me)?