All your icons are gone off of your desktop and you can’t bring them back.
It’s an easy fix:
1. Right-click on your desktop
2. Click Arrange Icons By (or something similar depending on your version of Windows)
3. Click Show Desktop Icons
Wait a few seconds and all of your icons will come back. If they don’t you should get a Mac or Ubuntu computer.
One of my client’s today had a problem with slow and frequent disconnects with her wireless Internet (wi-fi) in her home. Upon my investigation, I discovered that her computer had hooked onto a neighbor’s weak, unsecured signal and was ignoring hers. After connecting to her signal, the wireless was strong and didn’t disconnect.
To make sure that you are connected to the wireless signal you think you are:
This will be the fourth article I have posted about the Zonbu computer company (read previous Zonbu articles here). Since my last report, I helped setup a second Zonbu laptop and visited with my first Zonbu customer today. The second Zonbu owner bought his for his wife who enjoys mainly email and Internet and had no need for an expensive machine. He and his wife found the computer easy to operate and extremely capable for their needs.
In visiting with my original Zonbu client today, all we did was talk about basic computer learning issues…no computer or security issues. The laptop is working well and fitting her needs perfectly. She had the occasion to talk with Zonbu support on a few occasions and found them to be extremely helpful and patient.
One of the things we did today was setup an Epson printer with her laptop that she received from a friend. As many of you are painfully aware, setting up a printer in Windows can take up to 20 minutes in some cases because of the gargantuan installs the manufacturers throw at us these days. Here’s how the Zonbu printer setup went (and all Linux printer setups for that matter):
If you really like saving all of your email, you might seriously consider getting a Gmail account. With today’s emails sometimes weighing in at 5 megabytes and more, email programs (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc) can get extremely sluggish. Sluggish performance eventually leads to corrupt data which means you lose all your email.
You can take steps to avoid this, however, by following a few simple
Woo hoo! As I left for work this morning I looked at my indispensable Palm Treo 755p and saw a site that is usually reserved only for vacations to larger cities than mine…or Craig, Colorado. I saw TRIANGLES!!
Triangles in the world of the Sprint Palm Treo indicate that I am in a high speed zone for my Sprint data plan. Since many cell phones have the capability of accessing email and Internet content, carriers have expanded their networks, slowly, to allow for higher and higher speeds.
Sprint offers two levels of data speed in their network. For years, I have toiled (tongue firmly mounted in cheek) under the capacity of checking weather, directions, movie times, email and more with my Treo at maybe fast dial-up or ISDN speeds…indicated by the little arrows above my signal indicator.
When Sprint rolled out their high speed network a few years ago, my hamlet was not included. My phone has been capable of the new speeds for more than a year, but unless I traveled to a metro area or the smaller town of Craig, Colorado (which I drove through once about six years ago) I could not access the higher speeds which approach a strong DSL connection like speed.
To make a long story short, my day was smoother, the sun was shinier, and the wind was windier today with my Treo 755p by my side happily sucking in Internet data at speeds probably 5X faster than yesterday. Triangles…my new favorite shape.
We have written quite a bit about Web 2.0 here at HelpMeRick.com and this week I decided to start a mini-series featuring my favorite Web 2.0 web site, Zoho. Zoho offers an online set of productivity tools unequaled anywhere else on the web. Many of the tools are offered at no cost and cover everything from word processing to project management.
In this first installment, I take you on a short tour of the Zoho word processor known as Writer. Writer offers all the tools that almost anyone needs in a word processor with the convenience of being available on any computer using any operating system or browser and at no cost to the user. Some of Writer’s features include:
Watch this short tour of Zoho Writer to learn more and see it in action.
Tips and tricks for restoring old photos and removing blemishes digitally
Meeting notes from 02-26-08
Tools needed:
A good scanner
For prints, almost any scanner will do pretty well, but if you are doing small photos, slides or negatives, you will probably want to go with a nicer Epson scanner such as the Epson Perfection 4490. These scanners offer transparancy scanning for slides and negatives as well as very high 4800 dpi resolution for well under $200.
After almost 13 years of battling security problems on Windows machines, I’m finally seeing the light of day and recommending Mac’s and Linux for many computer users. It will be a long journey convincing people that there is life beyond Microsoft.
For those who bang away with Microsoft Windows computers,and have problems with Slow Computer Disease (SCD), pop-ups, viruses and other problems, I present the following sage advice:
I’ve learned that when it comes to spyware/adware (THE major cause of SCD), if it takes more than an hour to troubleshoot and solve, you will be WAY AHEAD of the game to:
1. Backup your data
2. Reformat the system, and resinstall Windows
This weekend, an emailer asked the question of how to use the backups that we describe on our site. An excellent question I’m sure others have had as well.
Over the years, I laid out step-by-step methods for backing up your email address book, favorites/bookmarks, and even your email. To use these backups, simply use the “Import” function to bring them back into a new installation of a program or even a new computer.
I got a call yesterday that I will call There’s Something Wrong with My Mouse.
As I have mentioned before in previous phone call transcripts. I do not write this to make fun of the caller or exaggerate the particular problem. Once in a while it is just fun to provide a view of what it’s like to be a roving computer guy,
I did not take notes of the actual quotes, but here is a paraphrased version:
Caller: “Hello, Adam, I need your help. There’s something wrong with my mouse.”
Me: “Ok, what are the symptoms?”
Caller: “Huh?”
Me: “What is your mouse doing or not doing?”
Caller: “Nothing”
Me: “You mean the arrow isn’t moving ….or the buttons aren’t clicking?”